


Teen Wolf Short fictions -

by DarkAthena (seraphim_grace)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 69, Aftercare, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Arranged Marriage, Blade Runner AU, Blindfolds, Child Abuse, Christmas fic, Collars, Constantine - Freeform, Constantine xover, Crack, Cuddling & Snuggling, Elf Stiles, F/F, F/M, Figging, Gags, Incubus Stiles, John Constantine - Freeform, Kid Fic, M/M, Marriage, Mental Health Issues, Mpreg, Multi, PWP, Polyamory, Public Sex, Punishment, Rimming, Sex Toys, Shibari, Star Wars AU, Threesome, Voyeurism, Witcher - Freeform, aphrodisiac, before the hale fire, consensual drug use, lostboys story, neck collars, nekomimi, padawan stiles, shotiles suggestions, wee!Derek, wee!cora, wee!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:50:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 27
Words: 32,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/DarkAthena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are short stories, vignettes and fic fragments that include tumblr prompts but can't be considered stand alone stories, this means they might be a scene from something, or a piece of important conversation or were just too short to post as stand alones.</p><p>These are rated with the highest that Ao3 allows for the potential for that, they might be porny, they might be angsty, they might be fluffy, I'm warning in case of because I don't know where these will go. Each fic will stand alone unless said so - if there is a sequel it will say.<br/>The fics may include violence, character death, suggestive or triggery scenes and each one will have a separate warning in the note.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> These are rated with the highest that Ao3 allows for the potential for that, they might be porny, they might be angsty, they might be fluffy, I'm warning in case of because I don't know where these will go. Each fic will stand alone unless said so - if there is a sequel it will say.  
> The fics may include violence, character death, suggestive or triggery scenes and each one will have a separate warning in the note.
> 
> I removed the bdsm fantasy fic to it's own story, called the sheriff's son, and I Might do the narrative hinted at in those stories.
> 
> English spelling applies to all fics here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is just the list of stories in the set, I moved this from the summary because it was getting stupid long

Story 1: Lord of Stiles and Umber - a fantasy au  
Story 2 : Scene from a concordance au - a dropped scene from a future fic, bdsm au - talk of contracts  
Story 3 : Mirror, Mirror - a porny oneshot from the future-fic bdsm au - a punishment  
story 4 : Snow Cherries from France - a ficlet featuring Stiles and Derek as kids playing after school  
story 5: 69 - a tumblr fic for having 69 followers - does what it says on the tin  
Story 6: Lydia and Stiles are cleverer together  
Story 7: It's all your fault Stiles - an mpreg set in the Lost boys universe - rated T - crack  
story 8: Oh Christmas Tree (How lovely are thy branches) rated G - Derek's a grinch  
story 9: The Christmas Elf - Stiles is a christmas fairy - no really.  
story 10 - Loveless - a fusion with the anime of the same name - special warnings apply!  
story 11 - Dark side of the force - a star wars au  
story 12 - Alphas are idiots - a fantasy au with a/b/o dynamics  
story 13 - A night in mexico - Lyra pwp f/f femmeslash - a tumblr prompt  
story 14 - Between Breaths - Scallison, a tumblr prompt  
story 15 - Law and Order - Melissa McCall/Sheriff Stilinski - a tumblr prompt  
story 16 - What the Fox says - Scira - a tumblr prompt  
story 17 - The Smell Pool - Peter tries to win a better (suggested Steter) a tumblr prompt  
story 18 - A different kind of knot - Sterek features shibari - a tumblr prompt  
story 19 - Anger and blindfolds - Berica features blindfolds - a tumblr prompt  
story 20 -5 min sentence fic prompts from tumblr

story 21 - Delenda Est = a WIP bladerunner au

Story 22 - Constantine xover to test character voice

story 23 - grandmother hale fragment

story 24 - gold dust woman - an examination of laura

story 25 - witcher au, witcher stiles goes to see retired witcher scott


	2. Lord of Stiles and Umber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get home from school Stiles accidentally accrues a blood debt from a group of werewolves, who give him one of their own in payment, and finds himself in the middle of a terrible feud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T: canonical character death, Kate Argent  
> Stiles ends up owed a life by a werewolf community, they give him Derek to pay their debt.
> 
> This is the one I'm going to be precious about. Many years ago (back when Pluto was a planet and I don't think there were any pokemon, certainly long before they came to the UK) on a school trip to Sherwood Forest I accidentally created a world that would shadow over me, because it's a fantastic world but the muse never really gave me a story. Sitting there on the coach whilst everyone else sang along to Queen (it was a school choir trip as a congrats for a job well done) I sketched out my second novel (long lost and good riddance btw) and created the world Dathyl.  
> Now all those years have given Dathyl a richness and depth that comes with having written hundreds of stories in that universe and needing different things. Some of those stories have been in fandom too.  
> But the world is MINE, and I get a bit protective over it, but it's also a world that naturally had werewolves (called Wildings) and hunters long before Teen Wolf.  
> So when my fandom wife, Keire_ke suggested writing Teen Wolf in Dathyl this is what appeared.

Cailean, Lord of Stiles and Umber, Merrigold and Deep Crossing, -most commonly called Stiles - was sat upon his horse listening to the droning of the guards around him whilst he wondered just how much trouble he'd get into if he just put his heels down and took off, when the lead guard, a large man entirely loyal to the Sheriff and used to Stiles' bullshit, cocked his head. The main road from the Bishopric of Amitre to the small preserve of Merrigold, that Stiles' father looked after since his Mother, the Lady of Stiles and Umber, Merigold and the rather misleadingly named Deep Crossing (it was a ford that a toddler could cross without getting their ankles wet) had died was well maintained, and constant patrols meant that it was supposed to be safe. There hadn't been a robbery on the road since Stiles' grandfather was in charge.

Except now they got closer to the noise that's exactly what it sounded like.

The guards rushed ahead because if there was one thing that serving the Sheriff had taught them was that the best defence was to completely immobilise your opponent, and then they could be dragged back to the town proper for a trial and their inevitable hanging. The Sheriff was well loved by his people, but that didn't mean he wasn't ruthless when it came to their defence. Stiles hoped he was half as good when he came to majority and ended up ruling the town, or there was his actual plan of coming to majority, legally taking charge and then letting his dadja do what he'd been doing all along.

It wasn't simple bandits, even Stiles could tell that, sheltered from the violence because no matter how well he was trained he was still the Lord, even if he wasn't old enough to rule without a Sheriff, so they kept him back, when the woman, head veiled and dress torn came out of the underbrush. She had something bundled up in her arms. "Please," she said in a heavy accent, "please."

For a second Stiles was torn, he was supposed to stay with the guards, but then the bundle made a high keening noise. It was a baby and at the noise the hunters, and they were clearly that now Stiles thought about it, fought a little more viciously. Stiles offered her his arm and pulled her up on the horse, settling her before him so that the baby was safe, "tell me where." He said and pushed the horse on.

Her directions were clear and he followed them, feeling her warmth and the soft high pitched sobs of the child at the movement, she had the baby in a sling and for the first few miles the woman made soothing sounds to the baby, trying to calm it.

\---

It was near dark when Stiles found the village, couched in the shadow of the Dread Termigent forest, something in his life he had been taught again and again to avoid because the forest was dangerous, if the monsters didn't kill you, his Mae-ma said, the trees will, and the guards had repeated similar stories. It was a small village, perhaps four low houses, walls rendered with mud, and a manor, but they flew the Bishop's flag proudly. He had heard, all of the children in the Bishopric of Amitre had heard, tales of Wilding Villages, protected by law, but he had never seen one because wildings were dangerous. They were defensive and quick to anger and kept themselves to themselves for good reason. It was said that there were those who could not even converse like men, but they were also the only people who could thin the edge of the forest and prevent it from overtaking more of the land, they made their money, slim as it was, selling the strong rich red wood of the trees at the edge of the Forest but never took enough wood to make them wealthy.

"Ho!" He called out, "I come in peace." That he felt he needed to get out. "I need help." He added, but the woman in front of him, wrapped in his cloak when she had started to chill, said nothing.

"Lara?" One of the men, wearing rough spun wool, because there were goats about bleating and generally being goatlike, and about a hundred years old said coming over. Without the horse moving the woman sort of toppled and it was only through quick reflexes that the man and Stiles caught her, she sort of landed on him as Stiles grabbed her arm. It was then he realised that Lara, who had never given him her name, was dead and had been for some time. His brain immediately started to freak out because he had been riding pillion behind a dead woman and there was a baby and....

The other man pulled Lara off the horse and into a sort of cuddle position as a woman, veiled and dressed like Lara had been came out of one of the low houses with a low cry that was clearly grief. "There were hunters," Stiles babbled, "I didn't know what to do," and the old woman took the baby, bouncing it against her chest and stifling what was clearly a wail. "She said to come here," Stiles continued, "I didn't know she was dead, I," 

The old man lifted the body as if it was nothing more than sheer fabric. "You saved the child's life," he said, although the face of Lara was pressed into his neck, "so we owe you a life." His voice was calm but even Stiles could hear the thread of something in it, something broken.

"No," Stiles protested, "that flag," he pointed across to it, "means you are the Bishop's men and that means you get protected by people like my father and I was just."

"Do you want the child?" The woman asked but it was clear that everything in her wanted Stiles to say no, and Stiles was saying no before she had even finished. The Wildings kept to themselves, they had their own law.

"But we owe," the man continued, "this cannot be, for who knows what you might ask in exchange. Take the child and go, Lara's debt will then be paid. She should have known better."

The thing was that Stiles could tell that the man did not want to make the offer any more than the woman did. "What is the total sum?" he asked. "How many logs would be equal?" Stiles didn't want a baby, he was barely more than a baby himself. There were things that the universe intended and Stiles being a mae-ma before he reached the age of majority was not one of them.

"There can be no exchange." The old woman said and her voice sounded like her heart was breaking when said it.

"A life," Stiles mused looking around the village, it was small and contained. "I cannot take the child," he said, "but I will take another, to be my bondsman, or woman, but I have conditions." He was trying to do what his father would do, that his was plan here, pretend to be his dadja and hope the universe smiled on him. "I will only take someone who won't be missed, someone with no family to mourn them," he was about to continue explaining that he would hold the debt in trust until someone was available with the ongoing hope that they'd just give him back his cloak, at best a piece of roast goat because he was hungry, and let him go on his way, letting him brush the entire affair under the carpet.

"Done," the man said. The woman nodded and went to the small manor. "Lara's brother is here, he has no family now, only the babe who will not miss him." The old man continued, "he shall be your bondsman, his life is now forfeit to do with as you will, to kill or keep depending on you." And k'so, Stiles swore in his head, he'd have to explain this to his dad. "His name is Derek," the old man continued as a young man, not much older than Stiles himself but with a body used to hard labour, black hair and thick dark facial scrub came out. He was only wearing wool pants and his feet were bare, he had been asleep Stiles knew. He was the sort of good looking that didn't really exist in people, just in stories and the opera, where really ugly men suddenly became gorgeous when they sang, and he wasn't just pretty in that way Prince Jackass was either, he was manly and rugged and the old woman was explaining what had happened and Stiles had inadvertently gotten himself a slave. How in all of Acuya's seven Hells, including the one reserved for truly terrible people - which is where Stiles was going after this - going to explain this to his Dadja?

 

\---

He was back on the main road with Derek, thankfully wearing a jacket now, but no boots because apparently he didn't need them, when half of his personal guard caught up with him, and Aneislis, head of his private guard and his father's favourite because he was completely immune to Stiles' particular brand of bullshit, push his horse right up beside Stiles', grabbed his ear and started shouting. Derek growled but Stiles was so used to it, it was Aneislis' favourite form of affection, because he was always exasperated at his charge, usually with good reason. And Stiles started talking, explaining about what had happened and how he had tried to save the woman, Lara, from the hunters, the ones that were probably now languishing in a cell, and about the baby and the debt and Derek, and how Derek wouldn't ride because horses didn't like him and how he didn't have boots and surely his feet hurt and Aneislis reacted to this the same way he always did, with a blank expression that suggested he was ignoring every world that tumbled out.

"Your father is going to be pissed." He said finally.

"You're telling me, but what was I supposed to do?" Stiles knew he had done the right thing.

"Called one of your men to go with you." That was said with another twist of the ear that Aneislis held. That made sense, "and that is the only reason we're not putting this man in a cell with the hunters." He said looking at Derek, Derek shrugged like it made no difference to him. The way that Derek had explained it - it hadn't, his life was Stiles' to do with as Stiles wished. Stiles had asked all sorts of what he considered stupid questions about what Derek was supposed to do but the general answer was - whatever you want me to, "Because I know about wilding loyalty," Aneislis said, "and Stiles, that boy there," and Derek flinched at the word, not like it was an insult like it was a word he had never considered to be applied to him by someone like the guard - and as large as the wilding was Aneislis was easily taller, broader and meaner with twenty some years more experience at fighting dirty. "Isn't going to leave your side until one or both of you are dead." Derek just shrugged again as if that was the perfectly normal response to that sort of statement. Stiles had noticed that Derek was generally annoyed at the world, or perhaps just Stiles, and didn't talk a lot.

"I can't say I planned this, I didn't wake up this morning and think over eggs with Prince Jackass that I would end up owning a wilding after riding off into the woods and arguing with this one man who I think was part goat and determined I end up with a baby and."

"Stiles," Derek said firmly, placing his hand, which looked perfectly human to Stiles and he didn't know what the fuss was with people being scared of wildings. "Shut up." And Aneislis, traitor that he was, just laughed.

\---

Stiles and Umber was a reasonably large town in the Bishopric of Amitre founded when two neighbouring smaller towns had grown together, and instead of allowing any kind of fighting in his territory the then Bishop had forced the two lords children to marry. Their offspring had been Stiles' own mother, who had married for love to the flagrant disapproval of both parents. The town, because of it's history, was a sort of mishmash of two different styles, one founded on river trade and fish, and the other on the low mountain to the west and it's sheep. Stiles' other two holdings, Merrigold and Deep Crossing were barely hamlets, and in total covered ten people and a rather large number of sheep. Unsurprisingly what wealth that the area had was in mutton and fish, which was the main reason Stiles had not argued about spending a season with the Bishop and his son, Jackson, because there would be other foodstuffs regularly.

Stiles loved his hometown, but seriously variety did not mean three days out of every seven devoted to mutton, with another three for fish, and one which was a religious fast where they consumed the flesh of anything. A chicken was considered a delicacy, in Amitre at the bishop's table a chicken was considered peasant food. It wasn't that he disliked the customs of his people, or even fish or mutton that much, he just wanted some variety - and different ways to cook them didn't count.

Instead of going straight up the hill to the keep where Stiles lived he made sure Aneislis sent a guard to tell his father he was staying the night with Melissa, his nurse, and her son Scott. This was mostly because Stiles thought it would be better to not arrive past midnight with a wilding in tow. Melissa would still be up and was used to Stiles arriving back later and staying with her because it was easier than getting through the guards and the welcomes and then it would be dawn before he saw his bed.

Melissa did not look impressed however. She took one look at Derek, then his feet and was pulling blankets and clothes out of old storage chests. "These were my husband's," she said passing him a pair of boots. "Well, I was having them made for him when the bastard ran off, you can have them if they fit." Melissa was never one to miss out on an opportunity to coddle, and by the fire Aneislis choked on a laugh whilst setting a pot boiling for kir. Derek looked like he was about to say something but Melissa crossed her arms across her chest and furrowed her eyebrows so Derek put the boots on.

"Your father missed you," Melissa said. Although she wasn't Stiles' nurse any more she still served in the keep, although no one was quite sure what she did, but it was generally accepted that if she didn't do it the entire area would fall into collapse. Stiles' personal thought was that it was taking care of his dadja, making sure he ate and slept and bathed occasionally because sometimes the Sheriff forgot that he threw himself so bodily into his work. "A woman arrived from Jacurutu, she has aimed her cap at him, but your father, bless him, hasn't noticed." That was not in the news his father had sent him. "I can't say I like her," Melissa continued, rooting around in her pantry for food, "but she is staying with her brother, that ex-Seraphim up on the hill, you know, your tutor." That was said with disdain as well, "And Scott still has his head in the clouds about that girl, and she's gone to Dathyl to marry."

"Argent?" Stiles asked, watching Derek with one eye, because the wilding had no idea how to get his feet into the boots, he had worked out the basics but the act of stomping into a new pair of boots was beyond him. 

But when Stiles said the word Derek growled, his eyes flashed blue and his hands curled into fists. "Kathryn Argent?" He asked. Beside the fire Aneislis tightened his grip on the boiling kettle.

"No," Melissa said, "she said her name was Cait." 

Derek growled again. "Stiles," he had taken umbrage at using the name but was forced to when Stiles had refused to give him his birth name, just what everyone called him, "that woman is dangerous." Melissa looked at him, knife in her hand where she was cutting cheese. "She is a hunter."

"Do you have proof?" Aneislis asked.

"Yes," Derek said finally, "I am a witness to what she has done. She slaughtered the wilding settlement north of Jacurutu, she laughed when she did it. When she sees me her reaction will prove her guilt, she thinks me dead." 

Stiles stuffed a large piece of bread into his mouth. "Well then," he said finally, "we'll tell my dadja, if she is the woman you say she'll hang with the rest of the hunters, you're my man now, that means your testimony is as good as my own."

"Men don't hang other men over wildings." Derek said firmly, it sounded broken, like something he had heard all of his life.

"They do in Amitre," Stiles pointed out, "any person under the law is subject to the law," those were the lessons that Argent had told him. "You pay taxes you're entitled to both ends of the Bishop's justice." He continued, babbling on. "And if there is evidence from Jacurutu then it's burning." He shrugged it off, "even if her father is the Seraphim Lord."

Derek looked like he had been stabbed. "Then we owe you twice the blood debt." He said finally, "for all of the Wildings have blood feud with the Seraphim Lord and his daughter."

"And making eyes at my father." Stiles said with a laugh, they would deal with this in the morning, his father was a reasonable man, and if this Cait had done what they said then she would hang, and that would be the end of it.

Later when Derek crawled into Scott's bed he simply growled, "to protect you, idiot," like possibly he wasn't the one who had had his world turned upside down. Stiles didn't care, he was used to sharing a bed, with Scott here and with Jackass in Amitre, and Derek was warm, and if the wilding needed hugs Stiles was more than prepared to give him them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of the size of this universe it has it's own slang and affectionate nicknames so Stiles calls his father Dadja (which translates as Daddy/Dad, it's obvious but I'm putting it out there.)  
> He refers to his mother as Mae-ma which is Mummy.  
> K'so is a curse word, about equivalent to shit.  
> Kir is a type of tea made primarily from rosehips, it's dark red in colour and is tangy and slightly bitter. (I actually made a recipe for it at one stage)


	3. Table of Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scene cut from the forthcoming Concordance AU that is my project after Inconvenient Relatives. In it Stiles is a submissive who struggled with identifying his dynamic and was recommended by Morell to talk to Peter because before the fire he was a Concordance counsellor. This scene - which my muse wanted like burning - did not fit at all with the plot she gave me in which Sterek was an existing relationship and Stiles was almost finished his Masters in Concordance theory.  
> This drabble takes place before they start dating and showed Peter talking to the Sheriff about it. it happened some time after season 2
> 
> This chapter is rated T for themes  
> there is one mention of Kate Argent obliquely, frank discussion of safewords and suggestion of sex with minors.

When John left the station after finishing what felt like the longest double shift he had ever had, making sure that Rosie on reception knew when to call him - when the world was ending and not a moment before - he wasn't expecting Peter Hale to be sat in reception waiting on him. Rosie even showed him how Peter had sorted out all the paperwork regarding Peter's disappearance from the hospital and being missing for three months, and even scribbled out on a post it note - EVEN SAID SORRY! 

"Sheriff," Peter said standing up, a lean line of dominance in expensive jeans and a soft henley. "I was hoping to talk to you."

"I'm off duty," John said bluntly, he was too tired to deal with anything more tonight. "Can we discuss this when I get back on shift in three days?" And John wanted those three days because he was taking Stiles camping and he never got to spend long blocks of time with his son.

"It's not a sheriff thing." Peter said, "It's about Stiles." 

"You better come back then." John said holding up the flip top of the counter.

"Actually," Peter said with a smirking grin, "you look starved and half dead, can I take you out for coffee and pie?" For a whole moment John questioned it, whatever Stiles had done to offend Peter he wasn't pissed enough about it to not offer pie, which Stiles had completely forbidden from his diet, and coffee. He was tired enough to want the coffee. He wanted the coffee badly, and John was a dominant himself, it wasn't like this was a date.

"Sure." He said, "There's a diner a few doors down."

***

The diner was reasonably empty at ten at night, and Peter sat down in one of the booths, after ordering coffees for both of them and whatever pie was on offer for the day - saying it was always worth trusting them with it, John had found that out years ago. "I was sat in the reception waiting for you trying to decide what to say." He admitted. And damn if that didn't make John nervous. "Because it's going to come out wrong no matter how I start. It is about Stiles and I'm coming to you because you're his dad." 

If this man made a proposal about taking Stiles on as his submissive John would punch those bright white teeth down his throat.

Peter must have been a mind reader because he suddenly backed up. "Oh hell, no," he said, "maybe if he was ten years older. I have shampoo older than him." John relaxed slightly. "And that's why I was wracking my brains." He admitted, "I'm of the opinion that you and I are more likely to have pistols at dawn for the Argent Widower, Stiles is far too young for my palatte, trust me on that." He smiled at the waitress as she brought them their coffee and pie, each with a perfect twist of cream. John wasn't allowed cream and if Stiles found out, but it didn't stop him digging in with gusto.

"I am a concordance counsellor." Peter explained, "well I was before the fire, my licence has expired so I can't charge for what I do, but when Stiles came to me to ask me about concordance and the fact that at seventeen he hadn't identified yet I knew I was going to have this conversation with you, because he is underage and you are his dominant no matter what his orientation." John relaxed but that might have been because of the huckleberry pie. It had been so long since he had huckleberry pie. He didnt know how Peter Hale had learned his weakness but he knew it now.

"Stiles has what we call a hinged dynamic, in his case he's submissive showing dominant traits. What happens is when a child suffers a trauma they adopt these traits as a defensive mechanism. In Stiles his mother's death threw him into a tailspin of panic that he would be left alone, this manifested in taking care of you, Scott and things like that, he took the dominant role in those relationships when his own natural dynamic is more submissive." John nodded like he knew what Peter was talking about, "usually it's the other way around, a dominant child is forced into a submissive role by a predator and takes those habits as a defence mechanism, so when they start to question their identity and dynamic they get really confused. This is what happened with Stiles."

"What makes you so sure he's a dominant submissive not a submissive dominant?" John asked.

"I've been working with Stiles for a few weeks now, he was supposed to tell you," that last part was grated out and it was like Stiles to not mention this. "He probably thought he could hide it, I'm doing this as a favour, but he probably thought you'd offer to pay me or worry about it." Peter cut out a perfect mouthful of pie with the side of his fork, scooping it up with just a hint of cream. "That's one of the main hints, he worries about you to the point of making decisions for you. He doesn't want to control you and protect you that way, which is traditionally dominant behaviour, but to protect you through controlling you. Also, there is the crease in your pants."

John looked at them.

"It looks like he ironed them to a knife edge, a dominant would care about his submissive's appearance, a submissive is that proud of his dominant he goes the extra mile, do you understand?" John nodded. "but at the core of it is Stiles' terror of being left behind, that is traditionally submissive behaviour, he just adopted dominant traits to make sure no one would leave him, the way he controls your diet for example," Peter looked at the now empty plate of pie. "More pie?" he said then with a grin.

John called over the waitress and ordered another slice of pie. 

"The only issue with this is that Stiles has a specific set of requirements in finding a dominant, he needs one that will tolerate his fussing and one that won't get sick."

"A werewolf then." John said bluntly. 

Peter dropped his fork. "I was told you didn't know about that." He said.

"I'd have to be an idiot not to, really." John conceded. "I just wish Stiles would tell me."

"It's another aspect of him trying to protect you, he's taking on the danger for himself rather than bother you." Peter stopped then realising he had said the wrong thing. "Not that he's in any danger, really." That qualification was blatantly untrue, "well none that we don't do our best to protect him from." He sighed and lifted his coffee, pushing away his half eaten pie. "That's the real reason I came to talk to you, Stiles is edging towards a relationship with my nephew."

"Derek." The sheriff said and lifted his coffee, it was a police tactic, giving them something to do with their hands whilst they stared down a perp.

"And if that's not a cluster fuck on it's own." Peter agreed. "Derek is a broken dominant. His first relationship was with a dominant who pretended to be a switch, saying she'd sub for him, and then complained about everything he did until he couldn't trust his own instincts any more." 

"That doesn't sound like I would approve the relationship." The sheriff said.

"It's worse than that, when he was in New York, he's admitted he tried scening with a submissive he later learned was too proud to use his safe-word, in fact it was a point of pride to him that he'd never had to, and he took the submissive down further than either of them liked."

"and you want me to approve a relationship between them?" John was slightly incredulous, and for good reason.

"In fact that's why Stiles would be perfect for Derek," Peter said, "because if he does anything Stiles doesn't like he won't just safe-word out, he'll punch him in the face and storm out of the room. He is a new submissive, untried and untrained but those dominant traits which would make him unattractive to most dominants make him attractive to Derek. He looks at Derek as an equal to whom he _can_ submit, not someone who will force him to."

"So if you've got this all planned out why bother me at all, why not wait until it all blows up and we can forget all about it."

"Because you're Stiles' dad." Peter answered, "and maybe it will blow up, but at the same time, you're freaking out now, and if Stiles came to you in a week or so and told you that he wanted to write a contract with Derek you freaking out would put back his therapy months." Peter leaned forward, "and of course you're going to freak out, he's your son, it's natural, but this means you get it out of the way, and Scott and Allison are a perfect example of why you need to write a contract for this kind of relationship." Scott and Allison's on again off again relationship was the subject of Peter's next book - on why you need to write a contract in these kinds of relationships, and he used it as an example with all the other teenagers that he knew - at length. "And if you're calm then you can put in clauses in that contract to protect Stiles, like possibly an escalating intimacy clause, which should be mandatory for new relationships because it all goes wrong when people just fall into sex."

John stopped for a moment, thinking of his own contract with his wife, all those silly little clauses that her father had put in place that made sense later even though they hated them at the time.

"And they are naturally forming this relationship?" John asked.

Peter nodded, "it's quite sickening really. Derek likes that Stiles stands up to him, Stiles likes that Derek will never leave him voluntarily, they're like puppies. This is just so you can freak out in peace."

John was quiet for a moment. "Pistols at dawn over Argent?" he said finally, "don't you have a bit of an advantage there?" And Peter just laughed.


	4. Mirror, Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles throws himself between Derek and danger, so Derek punishes him for not realising his own worth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another scene from the concordance au I haven't named yet, I have a plot and everything for that, but it's set years after these scenes when Stiles is months away from his doctorate (for a good reason btw) so these scenes became defunct. I'm posting them in the shorts so that they're not just lost.  
> Rated E: (e by gum!)  
> This one features punishment, blindfolds, gags, chains, kneeling boards, figging, anal sex and voyeurism.

Derek's instructions had been firm when he left to go to the store for whatever it was that he needed for the punishment. Stiles was to wash thoroughly but not prepare himself, then he was to pull out the kneeling board in front of the full length mirror, collar himself, because they only used the collar for play or punishment, and sit in seiza naked awaiting Derek's return. Derek had been adamant that he wouldn't be long and if Stiles got cold whilst waiting he was to pull a blanket around himself, but to remove it when he heard Derek return. There were also things that were to be laid out, a lobster claw clip to fix the collar's D-ring to the kneeling board, leather hand restraints, the black leather blindfold with it's matching gag and the large cushion for the kneeling board. It was clear, Stiles thought, that Derek was pissed.

Stiles didn't often submit to punishments and Derek didn't like to offer them, but sometimes the act went too far and a punishment became inevitable. Derek didn't like to inflict pain on Stiles outside of sex, and never for punishments, but that didn't mean that they were kind. Looking at the toys spread out on the beside table, on a white pillow case the way that Derek preferred Stiles felt a thrill of anticipation and worry. Derek would be back any time now. He could wait.

When Derek came in he was still fully dressed and had a small bowl in his hand which he put down beside the toys. "Hands behind your back," he said and Stiles obeyed, letting Derek bind them tightly, enough that he couldn't get free but not so tight that he could get free. Derek always used the more traditional wrist to elbow binding which splayed Stiles' collarbone because he liked the way that it made his throat look. There was a soft foam pad for Stiles to kneel on, although it always made his feet numb and crampy because he had never been the kind of submissive to sit for hours in seiza until it was second nature, but he hadn't identified until less than a year ago. "This is punishment, Stiles," Derek said, "and I know you like to watch, so I'm going to blindfold you," he held the strap in his hands, it was butter soft leather, a soft almost waxy black and buckled behind his head. It was the best money could buy, soft enough not to irritate his skin although the inside was stained with tears and sweat. "And I'm going to gag you so you can't talk." The gag was a harder leather, biting into the skin at the corners of his mouth, tasting heavy and rich on Stiles' tongue. "I'm going to push you into position now," Derek always told him what he was doing when he blindfolded Stiles because neither of them liked being manhandled with no idea when it would end. Derek rarely blindfolded him.

When his face was flat with the padded end of the board Derek quickly clipped his collar to the D-ring and chain there, there was some give but not enough that Stiles could rear up. Then Derek moved the cushion so it was under Stiles' belly to help support him. "Spread your legs for me," Derek murmured into his ear and Stiles did, feeling the heavy heat of Derek's hands on his ankles. "So beautiful like this," Derek said to himself, "so very beautiful." A thick blunt finger ran the length of the cleft of his ass and Stiles jumped but the bounds held him firm. "I don't think you even know what you did." Derek said, and then there was something else at the pucker of his ass, something cold and wet, but not as large as Derek's finger, whatever it was Derek rubbed it against the muscle then pushed it in, to where it was wider. It felt like a very slim and not very long plug. If this was all Derek was going to do Stiles didn't know exactly where the punishment came in. "Getting between me and Mrs Packard's dog," he cuffed the upturned swell of Stiles' ass. "Because it's not the fact that you're human and I CAN HEAL," he grated those words out, "but that you consider yourself expendable, that you'd rather die than let me be hurt, even by a dog that wouldn't actually bite." Mrs Packard's dog was a terrible barker but it had never actually done anything.

"You are not expendable, Stiles." Derek repeated, "And I'll punish you over and over until you learn that lesson." The plug was starting to get warm in Stiles' ass, not uncomfortable, but warm, and steadily getting warmer. "This punishment is called a figging. It's long since fallen out of fashion, but I always liked the idea of it." The plug was getting hot, hot enough that Stiles was squirming against the cushion, positioned in such a way that it wasn't touching his cock and the heat was spreading, it was all around the circle of his ass, down his perineum and starting to affect his balls and it was a hot tingling itching heat. "A hundred years ago when a dominant wanted to punish their submissive they would use this torment, it's getting hotter isn't it?" And it was, but it wasn't burning, it was just too hot, hotter than blood but not by much, and it itched and tingled and tormented and it was spreading and Stiles couldn't say anything as his balls were engulfed. "Don't worry, love, it doesn't last long, twenty minutes at most." Derek put a soft kiss to the nape of Stiles' neck. "They would make a fig, such a simple little thing, just a little finger of ginger carved to shape." He stroked his hand down the length of Stiles' spine as the boy was starting to twist and buck because it wasn't quite enough, not enough pressure, not enough at all, and he couldn't complain or curse or touch himself. 

"So very beautiful like this," Derek repeated, stroking Stiles' spine like he was a dog, "writhing and twisting and mine." He ran the flat of his palm over the silver triskelion mark on Stiles' hip, the one that was the permanent sign of their bond, the sign that meant no one else would ever see Stiles like this, blindfolded and bound and wanting.

And Stiles was twisting now, pushing back and rearing up, the clip at his neck jangling and his throat bared, biting down on the leather gag. "Too valuable to let you sacrifice yourself," the hand went to Stiles' hair, petting softly, "I'd die without you, and if I have to do this until you understand that I will, again and again and again." The other hand went to the fig in Stiles' ass and twisted it, before pulling it free, but even with the infernal thing gone the itching twitching burning sensation was still there. There was a fleeting kiss to Stiles temple before the blindfold was undone. "You should see yourself," Derek said, unclipping the clip to his collar, "so beautiful and mine." In the mirror Stiles could see that Derek was naked now, when had that happened, and Derek pulled him back with a hand on his sternum as Derek himself settled between Stiles' spread legs. "All mine."

Derek's fingers were quick and efficient in his ass spreading lube and easing the burning, twitching itch of the ginger oil, then he lifted him, so easily as if Stiles were nothing more than tissue paper and impaled Stiles on his cock. The hands then slid down Stiles' thighs so that they were under his knees and lifting him up. "You did so well, so beautiful," Derek murmured into the skin at the nape of Stiles' neck, "look at how proud I am of you." There was a bite but Stiles eyes were fixed on the mirror, on the image of his ass opening up to swallow Derek's cock like it had a mind of it's own, there was the pucker and stretch and pull and the sensations and the slick shine of the lube on Derek's cock, and how red Stiles' chest was, and how angry his own cock, untouched and still tingling from the ginger. "Won't lose you," Derek murmured, "so proud of you, took it so well." And Stiles knew how he looked, gagged and bound and held open for his dominant's pleasure in a way that was rare because Derek cherished Stiles' independance, but all those primal parts of him were happy that he had pleased his dominant, that he had done well. 

It didn't take long for Stiles to come, in thick ropy streams against his chest but Derek didn't stop, slowly lifting and lowering Stiles onto his cock, like he had all the time in the world, murmuring that he was beautiful, that Derek was proud and he had done so well, and Stiles was crying, not sobbing but his eyes were streaming and he could see that in the mirror, and how Derek's eyes had gone alpha red and how strong Derek was to hold him like this, so he could see, because Derek wanted him to watch, to see how proud of him that Derek was, and Stiles head lolled back against Derek's own, but he still watched the mirror through his lashes.

When Derek came it was with his blunt, human teeth sinking into the cords between shoulder and neck, where a mating bite would scar, and they fell forward unto the padded surface of the kneeling board, with the cushion against Stiles' neck and Derek's teeth scraping against the skin and Stiles wished he could come again, that he could please Derek that little more. It wasn't often he sunk into subspace like this, where he was outside of his own head and all that remained was the urge to make Derek happy. "So Beautiful," Derek said sprawled over his back, hot and heavy and solid. "Love you so much."

And Stiles knew that was why he had been punished because Derek loved him so much, because Derek understood the need that drove him to put himself between Derek and danger without the ability to heal, because Derek would never bite him if he didn't want it, and Derek didn't think he was fragile just because he was human, just not as strong physically. Derek loved him, so perhaps the punishment had taken. Of course, Stiles thought, face smashed against the padded kneeling board, you bought ginger roots by the hand, and it wasn't that suspicious if he made a really gingery stir fry to make sure it didn't happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seiza is the technical term for the kneeling with hands on knees position in Japan, it is the traditionally formal way to sit and is the same position submissives use. I figured that in a universe where it's common it would have a specific name and I didn't want to think one up.
> 
> Figging is a controversial practise because as Thequeeninmourninghasasecret pointed out in her comment it can be dangerous.  
> Now I did do a lot of research before writing this and more when she let me know and I'm going to say DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME ON YOUR OWN OR WITH AN UNTRIED PARTNER  
> it seems using ginger root is one of the safest ways to do this, but it can result in chemical burns, damage to the anus and bowel, and that's not including the people who do this using chili oil on a buttplug - which has been heard of.  
> There is also a chance of allergic reaction
> 
> a similar experience can be had with a tingling or self warming lube on a butt plug. Derek knew what he was doing, unless you do - don't try this one at home.


	5. Snow Cherries from France

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles goes home with Derek and Cora after school  
> Cora's POV - short ficlet.   
> G rated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on a request from moderngenius94  
> who asked for wee!derek and wee!stiles, there's a four year age gap between them in this story, but I can't write fluff, I'm not programmed for it, so there is a thread of angst in this, but it's dramatic irony, it only hurts because of what we know.
> 
> Title from Tori Amos - Snow Cherries from france is about the adventures she had with a friend as a child, how they went sailing in their backyard etc, and I knew when I got this prompt this would apply.
> 
> And yes I think that Peter would call his cat that.

Cora didn't like Stiles. He talked too much and he always wore stupid tee shirts with super heroes on them and his Mom gave him dried fruit for his snack at school, not cookies, and he always traded with the other people but never with Cora, even when he had dried mango which he knew was her favourite, and he couldn't sleep during nap time no matter how hard he tried, and he'd just lie there talking to himself because everyone else was asleep and she didn't like him. So she didn't understand why her Momma said he had to come to her house this afternoon.

She didn't know why her Momma like Stiles' Momma, because all her other friends' Mommas were friends, so why couldn't her Momma be like them, but her Momma liked Stiles' Momma even though she dressed funny and smelled strange and kinda sweet and herby, like the lavender bread Mawmaw made in the summer. 

But now Stiles was in the back of the car with her and Derek and he was talking and talking and talking and he never shut up. So Cora was pouting, because Stiles was going to their house this afternoon and it wasn't fair. She didn't want him in her house, with her pack, he wasn't pack, he wasn't, he was stupid and he never swapped his mango with her even though he knew it was her favourite.

"Cora," her mother said as they got out of the car, "is something wrong?"

"No, Momma," she said as her mother crouched in front of her to look her in the eye.

"Glad to hear it, because you know why Deònaidh is here, because his Momma has to go to the hospital on Wednesday's." Her Momma wasn't being mean, she had said that Stiles could come over on Wednesdays because his Momma had to go to the doctors because she was sick and his daddy was a police man and had to be like Batman and catch all the bad people. Just because she understood it didn't mean she liked it. Stiles as a stupid head but it wasn't his fault that his momma was sick.

But Stiles and Derek were already playing in the back yard, because Derek didn't mind that Stiles talked too much, or ran about too much because then Uncle Peter's mad cat Chairman Miao would chase them and it would be fun, but they never invited Cora to play. Uncle Peter said it was because they were both boys and boys were stupid like that, Apple. And Cora hated how Uncle Peter called her Apple but he did it anyway. Uncle Peter was her favourite because he had a stupid cat and he read to her all the best books even if he wouldn't let her touch them because little apples had sticky fingers.

Derek and Stiles weren't chasing the cat, or being chased by the cat, Cora was never sure which it was because they never let her play, they were sitting in a box now. "What are they doing?" she asked Uncle Peter because Uncle Peter knew everything and he would tell her.

"I think," Peter said as he sat down on the porch next to Cora, "that they are paddling down the Amazon river," he said, "looking for the lost city of gold."

"Do you think they'll find it?" Cora asked because she'd like to go paddling down the Amazon River looking for the lost city of gold.

"I hope not," Peter said with a smile, "because the looking is much more fun than the finding, now how about you and I go inside and watch cartoons, eh, Apple?" 

"I don't like Stiles," Cora said to her uncle as she took his hand. "He talks too much and he never shares with me." 

Peter looked over his shoulder at Derek and Stiles in their cardboard box, "I know, Apple, I know."


	6. 69 - tumblr fic for 69 followers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ummm, the title says it all

“Are you sure?” Derek asks again looking around at Stiles, it’s a bit of a feat considering that Stiles is currently kneeling over him with his head over his cock, one hand lazily jacking the base and two fingers in Derek’s ass, and Stiles’ cock is almost batting against his lips, and all it would take is one swallow, but Derek wants to make sure.

“Dude the only way I could be less sure is if I had another hand,” Stiles leans down to look at him, his soft dark brown hair actually grazing Derek’s cock, and it’s wet from their shower earlier and that shower is the only reason that either of them has the wherewithal for any kind of conversation. It’s hard to think, Derek knows, when Stiles is kneeling over his face, calves either side of his ears and his cock is just there, hot and pink and wet and one little lick wouldn’t hurt. “So unless I grow another arm I’m good. I’m more than good, I’m freaking eager,” and with that Stiles opens his mouth.

They’ve never done this before, Derek thinks, wondering how in the hell his brain is still working, because he has his gorgeous boyfriend leaning over him, his cock in Derek’s mouth, his hand jacking Derek off, two of his long fingers in Derek’s ass, and the inside of his cheek is hot and soft and wet and yeah, he wants to make sure Stiles is sure, that Stiles knows he can say no, and dear god don’t let him ever stop.

And that’s why Stiles is on top, so he can step away, but Derek’s hands are on his ass, because Derek needs a bit more reach, and he’s pulling him down, letting Stiles fuck into his throat and why oh why did they wait to do this, using his mouth, trying to concentrate on what he’s doing gives Derek just enough thought that he can appreciate what Stiles is doing, twisting his fingers and rolling his hand and his mouth, how hot it is, the lines of drool running down the side of his cock that feel like fire.

Derek had a reason why they’d waited, but he sure as hell can’t remember it now.


	7. Lydia and Stiles being the brain-bros we all want them to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia and Stiles use their smarts, then Stiles gets distracted by fruit

for Halfdrunkpanda

who requested Stiles and Lydia being brain-bros

—-  
The thing is, Lydia has noticed, it’s not that Stiles is stupid, because he’s far from it, it’s that he thinks differently to the way she does, so the two of them can spend hours arguing the same side of a point and not even notice. But the debates are glorious, they wake her mind up and make her feel alive.

 

She doesn’t look at him sexually, because sex is something she bestows on people who are pretty and usually dumb. It is an offering that she allows them to make to her, and Stiles, Stiles is something else. In fact, she is discovering, Stiles might be an equal, which is something she has never had before.

But Stiles doesn’t need armour the way that she does, Stiles doesn’t wear well tailored clothes, or tight jeans or a little eyeliner, although she has put it on him before, as he laughed and said “But, Lyds, I’m not emo," although it was brown and just made his eyes pop.

No, she realises, he does wear armour, his is just different from hers, he wears plaid and tees instead of princess cuts and empire lines.

At the moment he’s bent over the desk that Derek had set up in front of the huge window in his loft. There are little desk lamps, clearly taken from thrift shops which are a mish mash of styles, but cast pools of light on the old books that are easier to keep there than to explain to their parents. “I think it’s a Epimeliad." Stiles says finally, then takes a mouthful of the soda beside him, and turns the book. Derek has gotten Stiles a to-go cup because he was fed up of the sticky stains left when he got excited and sent the can flying. This one had a lid and a flip up cover for the mouth hole. His pronunciation is terrible but Lydia understands.

"A dryad?" Lydia asked. She was drinking tea because Derek had this lovely green tea with jasmine. She had no idea where he got it, but he made it much better than anyone else did, and she could drink it all night.

"Specifically a dryad associated with apple trees." He taps the picture with his finger, “a pretty girl with white hair that looks like undyed wool."

"I could just be a hipster with dip dyed hair." She says with a smile, although she’s pretty sure that Stiles is right.

"You’d think they’d condition better." Stiles answers calmly. “She fits the profile though, but they’re supposed to be pretty peaceful."

"Wasn’t there a fire last month, at the old apple orchard, when people bought it from the town council and tried to get rid of the trees which were protected." Lydia smiles at him. “Now we know why the trees were protected." It was well known that the council hated the old orchard and wanted to turn it into a strip mall but couldn’t act against the preservation order - but arsonists were a perfectly handy way out of it.

"So, what do we do?" Derek asks, bringing more tea across in mismatched china, a cup and saucer for Lydia because it gives her someplace to put the tea bag, but she likes the way the patterns don’t match, and she likes that Derek has done this stupid, silly thing just for her, because she likes the tea. This cup is a blue willow pattern and the saucer is a hot pink with gold stars. It’s almost offensive to look at but the tea is hot, and he reaches out for the cold cup she had been nursing.

"Plant more apple trees." She and Stiles say together, then look at each other and say “jinx" together. Derek does that exaggerated eye roll that he does when they’re being more childish than he is used to. “You have a lot of land in the preserve that is yours, plant apple trees and leave them to the Epimeliad." She continues.

"And then tell my dad that the new land owners are most likely responsible for the fires on the protected trees, we know they want to build a strip mall there, he’ll arrest them, and she’ll stop with all the property damage and threats. No one dies. She’s just protecting the trees." Stiles points out.

"It’s probably why the order was put there in the first place." Lydia finishes for Stiles, “to protect people from the Epimeliad, the law says it goes back sixty years and was petitioned for by your family, Derek, probably from the last time someone pissed her off."

"And that’s it?" Derek asks, it never goes that easy. Ever.

"Yeah," Stiles says, and scrubs his hand over his hair. “She’s pissed, not dangerous."

Lydia laughs at that, “she’s dangerous because she’s pissed, and besides, if you can reclaim that land, which is technically Hale land anyway, by proving the original sale was illegal because you are the heir, whatever, you can also have them arrested for criminal damage as well. The town council took a lot of liberties when you and Laura went away, they seized everything they could except the house because it was so famously yours. You and Peter could claim it back with payments, the rest of it, they’d have to pay you rent for the time they had it."

"And think of the apples." Stiles said, “and the apple pies, apple juice, apple muffins, hmmm apples."

Lydia smiled at him even as she shook her head, because Stiles was something alright, he was the only person who could keep up with her, even if he did it in the strangest ways. “Apple preserve, apple jam, strudel." She continued.

"Cider, pork and apple sausages, apple sauce."

"And thus concludes the useful part of the evening for you two," Derek answers with a laugh, fond as he ruffles Stiles’ hair like he would Isaac’s.

"Yeah, so get a lawyer, plant some trees, and tell the Epimeliad Peter did it." Lydia answers, sitting back in the chair, so it rocks back a little, holding her tea like a sceptre, Stiles is using his phone to google more recipes for apple, he might be drooling a little at the corner of his mouth, “it should solve all our problems nicely."


	8. It's all your fault, Stiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles didn't mean to do it, it was an accident, really  
> but now Derek's pregnant, the pack is excited and worst of all, peter has turned into MArtha Stewart and he's pretty sure they're right, It is his fault.
> 
> Or an mpreg set in the Lost Boys universe which is entirely crack and thus doesn't fit with the rest of them  
> for 888mph

mpreg

It started with the Norn, no Stiles corrected, it started before then but the Norn was responsible. Stiles could hold his father responsible because he had instilled a culture of kindess on him, and he couldn't quite understand that the Norn, who did nothing for nothing and worked on a system of trade, might be basically mistrustful of the new bluray player and pile of boxsets that he had gotten her as a thank you for her help. He hadn't thought she might interpret it not as a kind gesture, which was how it was intended, but as a payment for something - and the Norn did not like to owe debts.

But Stiles hadn't known that - he hadn't grown up in the fae world, he didn't know that their mean old ancient beings might be basically mistrustful, he'd thought she was an old lady who watched a lot of telenovellas who had helped both him and his mom. He'd just been being nice - really.

So when Derek started complaining about what felt like water in his ear, accompanied with hitting the side of his head with the heel of his hand everyone assumed it was water in his ear. He complained of mild dizziness but everyone assumed it was the water in his ear, because apparently being a werewolf didn't stop that from happening. And that was that.

In retrospect it was a lot easier to see how this meant that they could end up here, with Peter on the porch with his sewing machine making soft terry cloth animals with a pattern he found on the internet, Derek threatening to hee hee hee hoo hoo hoo Stiles with a vengeance, Deaton trying not to laugh, and the rest of the pack in the parlour taking bets on whether it would be a girl or a boy. To be honest the only person more excited about this pregnancy than Peter was Deaton who had never seen a male werewolf pregnancy before. But the only thing everyone agreed on was that it was Stiles' fault.

When Derek came back from Deaton with a bag full of prenatal vitamins and bio oil (in case of stretchmarks) and lavender oil (stress will harm the baby) he backed Stiles into a corner with a finger wagging going "what did you do?"

When they went to tell the local Fae Chieftain - the Willow, he had taken one look at Stiles and said "what did you do?"

When Derek had told the sheriff he was going to have to take a sabbatical because he was pregnant and he couldn't be on duty for anything other than paperwork because of it - and that wasn't considering the order from the Willow that he was not to be discovered as being pregnant the sheriff turned to Stiles and said "what did you do?"

Books were pored over, websites were trawled, Lydia spoke to a Shaman in new mexico who refused to be paid in anything other than pixie dust - which was both incredibly rare and expensive, and the only thing that they all agreed on was that it was Stiles' fault.

No one was entirely sure on the how though.

But Derek was pregnant. Apparently incubii couldn't get men pregnant, and it was so very unlikely in werewolves the last time it had happened the records fell with Babylon, so, yeah, it was Stiles' fault.

It was Stiles fault that Derek wanted pickle spears with banana icecream.

It was Stiles fault that Derek got fat ankles.

It was Stiles fault that Derek had to pee all the goddamn time.

It was Stiles fault.

Cora had spent the last few months wearing sympathy bellies because if any human asked she was the one who was pregnant, and that too was Stiles' fault.

In fact it was so commonly said that it was Stiles' fault that everyone started referring to the baby as It. 

Stiles had gone with Derek for It's ultrasounds and there were photos of It's Ultrasound on the fridge and Peter had made It all these pretty dresses in neutral colours and bought It lots of neutral baby grows because Peter, of all people, was super excited about It. He had woven a bassinet himself, bought the wood to carve the cot (werewolf claws were awesome for woodwork - who knew?) and decorated the room with everything made by hand. Laura had had to draw the line at him mixing his own paint in the workshed, and then had done it by warning him that It was more susceptible to fumes.

Then there were the betting pools. Lydia was managing these because as everyone knew she was the one who gave the best odds. It was currently 17 to 1 that it was going to be a girl because of a long complicated explanation Lydia had given with diagrams that no one had listened to. 

The most popular one was open to the entire fae community of North California as to whether or not Peter would try to eat the baby.

Stiles was still in denial, it was so much easier to think of It as it rather than as a baby, and Peter was crazy anyway. 

And now It was being born.

It was being born by caesarian after Derek had given a long and very complicated speech most of which had been profanities but the gist of which was no ten pound baby is coming out of my ass, but because of werewolf healing Laura had to make the incision - wounds caused by alphas took longer to heal - and Stiles was wondering if it was possible to heal bones ground to dust from werewolf healing in his hand, because it wasn't real yet, and he couldn't see what Deaton and Laura were doing behind the screen over Derek's stomach as Derek regaled It with curse words - some of which Stiles had never heard before. 

He didn't know this - but Peter had run out of terry cloth outside and was now knitting more cardigans, as if It didn't already have enough that It could go to the artic for an expedition. Cora thought this was hilarious as she and Scott carried the pregnancy sympathy belly out to the garden to burn it, because it had made her need to pee more than her brother who was actually pregnant.

"It's a girl!" Laura shouted, hanging out of the window. "Deaton's doing the weighing and measuring now."

Peter shrugged, and picked pink wool out of his yarn basket, and cast on. He'd see It soon enough, but he'd only made a hundred or so caps and none in pink, although there was the blue one with the pink shell edging, no he certainly had enough time to make a little beret.

\---

"Her name's not It, guys," Stiles said when he and Derek carried her down the stairs in the lovely white bassinet with the puppy fabric that Peter had made, as the sheriff bodychecked all the werewolves to get there first, whilst Peter sat in the rocking chair he had bought - on ebay - finishing his little baby pink beret with white trim and lace ribbon detail - "we discussed it and her name is Božena Talia Laurel." He said as he placed her, bassinet and all, unto the coffee table, "after our Moms, and our alpha," he looked across at Laura who was bouncing forward in her chair in a I must not snatch the baby maneouvre recognisable by all new moms who brought their baby home to relatives who wanted a cuddle. "But we're gonna call her Boy."

Lydia held out her hand, "pay up losers, let's see I called the sex, the name and the date." As Laura just stared at Stiles with a look on her face saying let me hold her or I'm going to wolf out and kill you all. "And that Laura will get first cuddle."

"I helped deliver her," Laura protested, "of course I'm getting first cuddle." Stiles rolled his eyes, one thing was certain, perhaps he had inadvertantly bought a male pregnancy from an ancient being when he was just being kind, maybe he'd had the best part of a year being told it was his fault, but at least no one would ever doubt that It was going to be loved, and fought over, and spoiled stupid, as Peter cast off his beret, pulled his darning needle out from the twist he had for it in his hair, replacing it with his size 4s, and looked at them all as if to say "what? where else am I going to keept them?" Because this was pack, and maybe she was a miracle child, or as her name suggested, a divine gift - but this craziness, as Laura and Cora shuffled and pushed and tried to get closer without actually giving themselves or each other away, Lydia counting her spoils, the betas playing cards over the credenza, Peter being crazy - this was pack and so was Boy.


	9. Oh christmas tree (how lovely are thy branches)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek is a Christmas Grinch

Oh Christmas Tree (how lovely are your branches)  
for alan713ch

 

Sterek  
teen rating

Derek Hale was a Christmas grinch. He sat in his corner of the apartment with a scowl and growled at the adverts on the television, about how Santa had worn green until Coke got their claws into him, how everything was commercialised even though he wasn't even vaguely religious. Stiles had a suspicion he wasn't Christian but some sort of wolf religion that he was suprisingly tight lipped about, considering that he had complaints about everything else.

Stiles on the other hand loved Christmas with the sort of zeal that was unique to people in sitcoms. He baked. He roasted. He strung popcorn garlands and snarled at Derek when he was caught eating it. He made dried cranberry garlands and actually enjoyed making wreaths, enough that he voluntarily made them for other people. He hated shopping, but he had started making gifts for people – little boxes of wrapped iced cookies.

But apart from a few popcorn garlands, and some threadbare tinsel around the bannister, and the huge box of decorations that Stiles had made there was no tree. This was because it was Derek's job to get the tree and as Christmas got closer and closer the tree still hadn't appeared.

The Christmas party got closer and closer and the tree still hadn't appeared. 

The day before the Christmas party appeared and there was still no tree.

“Enough.” Stiles said, with his hands on his hips, and a sweater with knitted Nordic reindeer on it. “We need a damn tree.” He repeated, “we do this every year, Derek, every year you say you'll do the tree and every year you don't.” Derek mumbled something but it was quiet enough that Stiles couldn't make out the actual words. “The party is tomorrow and we will have a damn tree and it's not like you don't own the damn preserve so you could go out and actually get a tree.”

Derek mumbled something again with his eyes down.

“Even the Grinch stole a damn tree.” Stiles maintained.

“I don't want a damn tree in the house!” Derek shouted back, “it's a stupid tradition and I don't like the smell and the mess, and you get bugs, and do you know how many houses burn down at Christmas because of the damn tree!?” 

Stiles blinked. Then he blinked again. “Why didn't you say anything?” Stiles said. “For god's sake, Derek, we could get one of those fibre-optic fake ones. I want a tree, it doesn't have to be a real one.” He had pretty much deflated Derek's anger by being pretty understanding. “Derek, we never had a real tree growing up, Mom said it was too much fuss, and Dad was too busy after she died, and I don't care if it's plastic, wooden, or made out of gingerbread.” He stopped, “well I'd rather it wasn't made out of gingerbread because I'd like to see my boyfriend occasionally and not find him in the sitting room gnawing on the tree.” He wrapped his arms about Derek, “we'll go to Target and get a damn tree.”

“And cookie cutters.” Derek muttered, still grumpy. “I want gingerbread now.”

“As you wish.” Stiles told him, “and we can get you a new Christmas sweater, and some more of that wine, for mulling and...” Derek tuned him out. Derek might not have liked Christmas, but he loved Stiles and Stiles loved Christmas and that was reason enough to have a plastic tree in the house, and gingerbread – gingerbread made it all worth it. But a six foot Gingerbread Christmas tree would make life perfect.


	10. The Christmas Fairy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt  
> Some sort of silly xmas Sterek AU where Stiles is a supernatural creature just coming into his legacy.. like as xmas elf or santas helper or smthg silly, and all the kids start gravitating towards him, so does Derek - although D is scared of the littlekids?

prompt  
 _Some sort of silly xmas Sterek AU where Stiles is a supernatural creature just coming into his legacy.. like as xmas elf or santas helper or smthg silly, and all the kids start gravitating towards him, so does Derek although D is scared of the little kids?_

The room was beginning to smell so strongly of spice and sugar, cinnamon, cloves and oranges, so much so that Derek was starting to feel a little nauseous in fact. Deaton had put a swipe of vicks under his nose and now Derek was regretting turning it down. Just getting Stiles here from his own house he had to shoo off at least twenty children as Stiles grew paler, the tips of his ears got more pointed and the smell got stronger.

“The good news is that it's not fatal.” Deaton said, “the bad news is I can't fix it.” Stiles was sat in the corner, wrapped up in a blanket that stunk of wet dog, shivering. Deaton had put a daschund into his lap and Stiles had just curled around it. 

There were children. Derek could hear them. He got up and locked the door. 

“It's not worrying, we can control it but we need to do one of two things.”

“anything.” Derek said, not sure if he was more worried about Stiles as his skin got more papery and the scent of Christmas, with hints of pine, got stronger, and he started purring, or the fact that he was being chased by kids who were pretty much like zombies.

“It's complicated.” Deaton said, clearly enjoying the secret. “Stiles is just coming of age, he needs to go through this phase, but we can hurry it along.” The kids were mobilising. “We'll need to get him out of town.” The tips of his ears were blue and when Stiles heard the children, he smiled, and his teeth were like those of a shark. It was quite disturbing. “He's a psotnik, his mother was the same.” He went to his cabinet and pulled out a small vial, when uncapped it smelled like Frankincense and myrhh, and he grabbed Stiles head and poured it down his neck. “We tested him when he was a baby but he was mostly human, we didn't think he'd manifest but with all the supernatural goings on it's clearly kick started him.” 

Stiles was still making that disturbing purring and the children had moved the trashcan around so it was under the window. Derek could see them staring in. “There's a good motel about an hour from here, we'll need you to protect him for a week or so whilst I get the things I need to suppress this.”

“What do you need?”

“There are herbs and things from Poland, or we can let him feed.”

“What does he 'eat'?” Derek said, “if that's quicker.”

“Children.” Deaton said.

“Poland it is then,” Derek said, “I'll find a cabin away from people.”

“The smell attracts children, hence they are desperate to get in. They used to call them Sugar plum fairies.” Deaton was trying, clearly to downplay how awful this was. The one human in the pack with no supernatural links turned out to be a child eating sugar plum fairy. “I just haven't the ingredients to come up with an alternative right now, and it might take me up to a week to get them, so my advice is to keep him away from children. The mixture I've given him will bring him back to himself but it might take a while to get in.”

“You might want to take the dog off him.” Derek said with a world weary sigh, the sort that meant he was going to spend his week with a Christmas scented child eating elf who was normally just a little annoying. He missed the snark. “It looks like he's about to eat it.” Deaton moved quicker than Derek had thought possible to rescue the dog that Stiles was licking. Stiles stopped purring and started making a really disturbing high pitched noise before Deaton plopped a stinking teddy bear into his arms.

How was this his life, Derek wondered, and what the hell were they going to do about the creepy creepy Children as he got him out of town.


	11. Loveless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a fusion with Yun Kouga's Loveless  
> contains some hints of Shotiles (nothing happens though) with 12 year old Stiles  
> contains heavy suggestions of persistent child abuse (Stiles' Mom) and mental illness (Stiles' Mom again)  
> nekomimi
> 
> in the Loveless universe virgins have cat ears and cat tails

Loveless

_When I was eight my brother, Link, told me his true name: Beloved, it meant to be loved; he told me to remember it, as if I would forget. He made me repeat it as he stroked my ears and laughed with me, he said that he was beloved and I should remember._

A week later he was dead.

The new boy in the class had his eyes down and was defiant, the ears on top of his head set at an angry angle and his tail was frizzed out. There was a band aid on one cheek and his left wrist was strapped tight. “Everyone,” their teacher said, “this is Stiles, he's going to be in our class from now on,” there was some muttering but the boy didn't look up at all. “There's a space next to Scott, so why don't you sit there.”

Stiles sat down next to the Scott who immediately started asking questions but Stiles just sighed and looked out across the next row of desks to the window. A dark haired man stood by the gate, in a leather jacket. There was a bandage around his neck. When he saw Stiles he saluted him, and Stiles smiled back, but it was weak and tired.

“After school,” Derek had told him that morning, making sure that he was dressed warmly for the day, that he had lunch in his satchel, that his cell phone was charged, “we'll go to the park and make memories.” And Stiles made an affirmative noise.

Derek had been Link's friend.

Stiles remembered the first time he met Derek, he had been sat outside the house on the bus stop bench when Derek sat down beside him. Derek was all grown up, and his ears were gone, “you're Stiles aren't you?” he said. Stiles hadn't said anything. He should have gone inside he knew, but for some reason he felt much safer with Derek than he did with his Mom. She'd been having a lot of bad days lately. “I was Link's friend.” He pulled out his cellphone and showed Stiles a picture of himself with Link. “I was his fighter.”

Stiles didn't know what that meant. “and that means now I belong to you.” Derek had a bandage around his throat, and he touched it when he said these words.

Stiles hadn't said anything. Link had died with his ears, so he was still a virgin, Stiles knew what that meant, but Derek didn't have his although he must have been the same age that Link was, that Link would have been.

Two hours after he had met Derek, sitting there on that bus stop not wanting to go home, they had been attacked by another Sentouki and Stiles had seen what Derek had meant by belonging. He had removed the bandage around his neck to show where someone had carved the word Beloved in block capitals. He had then bent down and kissed Stiles on the forehead and told him “I love you.” And Stiles couldn't question the sincerity in his statement.

Now when Stiles left for school Derek was waiting for him. Derek patched up his cuts and sprains. Derek made sure he had the proper clothes on. Derek made sure he had lunch money or a bag lunch. It was Derek's apartment that Stiles went to after school. It was easier than home. Derek was the one that made sure he wasn't taken away.

There was their wall of memories, digital photos that Stiles printed out and posted on the wall so he wouldn't forget.

Link died. His father died. His mom forgot; screaming obscenities as she told him he wasn't her son, to bring her baby back, what had happened to her baby.

So Stiles smiled for Derek from the window.

Derek belonged to him. Everything else didn't matter.


	12. The dark of the force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knight Marin talks to Padawan Stiles about the force  
> this was me playing, but it's very much a fragment from what looks like a bigger universe, same rules apply, want to run with it take it and link it back to me so I can read it
> 
> stiles is a fox-hybrid looking creature that is extinct, (for reasons explained in the story) and Marin is a gargoyle looking alien.

The way out is through

Stiles was sure that the work bench he was assigned as his punishment station deliberately overlooked the highest open ledge in the temple. He was determined that he wasn't going to let it get to him, because although fixing broken electronics was considered the worst of all punishments in the Jedi temple he was good at it and he found it calming. He would simply follow the force memory in the machine and set it back to how it remembered being. People weren't as simple to work with.

Once he finished the detail soldering he put the mini bot back on the worktop, and closed it's lid. “There you go,” he said activating it, with his omni tool still in his hand.

“You're good at that,” Knight Marin said from behind him. “More than is suggested from just practise.”

“The force remembers what it was like when it worked, it's like a blue print. I can't do it with new droids at all.” She looked thoughtful for a moment as he scratched his head. His hair was due to be shorn, like all the Padawan his hair was kept close to his head but he lacked their distinctive braid. Cutting away the braid was how you could tell a new Jedi from a Padawan but no one ever made the mistake with him. He put his tools away into their distinctive slots, he was at this punishment often enough that the droid master had given him his own work belt.

“I'm surprised you're not doing that eavesdropping trick you taught me.” She said pulling up a stool to sit beside him, her tail hanging to the floor “to hear what the council are saying about you.”

“The same old, I imagine,” he said, angry. He hadn't done anything wrong, dammit, but as usual he was getting punished for it. Sometimes he thought he got punished for breathing wrong. The droids had never had so much maintenance. He had his thick fluffy tail in between his hands, wringing it out in bad temper.

“That's a fair guess,” she said, “Knight Deaton is arguing that you are dangerous and should be Stilled.” Stilling was to be cut off from the force, it was supposed to only be done in extreme circumstances but Stiles was pretty sure that wasn't the case. Not every Padawan rose to Jedi after all, and not all of them would turn to the ledge. “Yet Master Stilinski has your corner, he thinks you should teach what you taught the Younglings to the older Jedi, Master Akkadiy wants to learn it himself.”

Stiles had been told to cover for a kata lesson with the younglings, the new children taken from their families when they were shown to be force sensitive. Most of them had never manifested the force and very few of those would even rise to Padawan, the others would be stilled and returned to their parents. The group Stiles had been looking after were considered a lost cause until he had taught them the First Kata and showed them how to light and extinguish a fire. Leaping about with praise when one of them did it so they'd laugh, his tail making an arc behind him.

He hadn't realised these modern Jedi didn't know such a simple thing. It had been the second lesson he had learned after that the force could be neither created nor destroyed and there was always a price for using it. The younglings would know that, wouldn't they?

“Knight Deaton had Padawan McCall testify that you cry in the night.” Stiles scoffed. Padawan McCall, Scott, was his bunk mate, they shared one of the temple's tiny cells, of course if Stiles so much as farted that Scott told his master. He didn't even blame him. He probably thought he was helping.

“Of course I cry in the night, I was born on a world ten thousand years dead, everyone I ever knew is dead so long that history has forgotten their names, and there isn't even a record of my species in the annals. I was told to get into the stasis pods with the other Padawan by my father and I'd be woken in a couple of days when the danger passed. I woke up here.” He put an inflection on the word. “Everything I knew has been replaced by this,” he spread his hands. “And I miss my Dad, my friends, my teacher, hell, I miss my Selath.” He was angry but he took several deep breaths and she watched his force signature calm itself. 

“What did you just do?” She asked, narrowing her eyes, which made her entire face look even more alien. He had never seen anything like Knight Marin before, she was tall, easily eight foot tall, with long thin limbs like a bird but without the fat breast, she was bipedal but with long legs that hinged like those of a cat with the knees facing back, clawed feet, and a pair of large scaled wings that she wrapped around herself like a cloak. Her hair was a thousand braided whips that fell around her face, with it's nose that was almost a beak and her thin lipless mouth, she had sharp pointed teeth but for all the oddity in her appearance Stiles sometimes thought she might be his only ally in this place.

“Your force signature,” of course her eyes, black with a blue iris, could see that. Stiles had to concentrate on it but he could see force signatures much better than the other Padawan that he trained with. These modern Jedi were like children. “You were angry, then you were not.”

Stiles blinked in shock. “I calmed myself down.” He said. Then he tilted his head, “for the love of Ryleh, do you not?” he shook his head. “I'm disappointed in you all, what do you teach the younglings, not to feel?” 

She shrugged. “My own people are remarkably equanimous.” She said. “We feel neither highs nor lows of emotion. It is the Jedi ideal, what we feel we give to the Force. There must be Balance.”

“But if you're not taught to expel the anger, the pain, how can there be Balance?” Stiles asked, genuinely agog.

“There can be no emotion where there is Balance.” Marin answered calmly as if it was simple, her black forked tongue licked across her lips. “How can one wield the force when extremes of emotion lead to the Dark Side, one can fall as easily from love to lust, from healthy fear to unhealthy terror.”

Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose. “By Ryleh's twin moons,” he said shaking his head, “how can there be Balance if one is not countered by the other, how can there be love without lust? How can we overcome fear if we do not allow ourselves to feel it?”

“That is the kind of talk that causes some of the Knights to talk so frankly about cutting you from the Force.” Marin said calmly. “It is no wonder you scare some of the Knights so badly.”

“If he didn't need me for the Codex Knight Deaton would do it in my sleep.” At that Marin laughed, it was a harsh whispery sound like sandpaper on wood. 

“I think you might be exactly what we need,” she said, her wings were hooked together by a great claw at her breast but he knew better than to even lightly underestimate her. She was a sith-hunter and she was very good. “The Halls of the Temple are staid.”

“Don't you mean stagnant?” Another knight might have laughed, perhaps Master Akkadiy, but not Knight Marin, he didn't think her kind did. She merely tilted her head to look down at him, it made him want to tug at his ears, which was a habit he had thought himself long broken from. 

“If I had meant stagnant,” she said, “I would have said stagnant.” She answered, it wasn't a rebuke, merely a calm statement. There was a reason that Knight Marin was so good at manipulating the force, she was a study in balance, nothing ever trifled her implacable calm. Stiles could not say the same. He was flustered, angry, upset, scared, nervous, bored, frustrated and tired all at the same time, but for the problem with Knight Deaton these things would be easily solved by a plate of stew and a quiet night in bed. “Are you keeping up with your katas, Padawan?” She asked.

For a second he considered lying to her. “I do perform both, just because the ones I learned are considered obsolete does not mean I do not take comfort from them, I find them easier to find the balance within them than the new ones that Master Stilinski tries to teach me.”

“I have seen your katas, they have much simplicity of form, and it was those katas that you taught the younglings, but you are different from many of the padawan, you are not so quick to simply agree to our traditions.”

“I was taught to find my own place in the force, to understand it and myself to better be a part of it.” Stiles answered calmly, “but those traditions are long dead, and sometimes I think that it would be better if I was too, they're not going to put me thorugh the trials.”

“There are those who think what you have been through is trial enough.” she answered, “and that you would do more good out in the field, you are loquacious and show a gift for diplomacy.” 

Stiles laughed out loud at that one. “We had six different class of jedi,” it was the first time she noticed the slight accent he had when he said that word, he said Juh-die, not jed-eye, “the sedai, or students of the force, the Jum-hadai, the twinned souls who drew the force through each other, the sidhe who studied the dark side of humanity, the Gadai who were the common foot soldiers and the Arth-nagai who served the common good, the diplomats and advisors. My parents were Jum-hadai,” he smiled a little fondly to himself, “but I was training to be sedai, Knight Deaton would be Sedai now if the class still existed.” He pulled a face at that, “Padawan Martin would be Sedai, she has the purity of purpose. I always hoped I would find the other half of me,” his ears, furred and sleek, were flat, he made little effort to hide his emotions but his ears would always betray him. “That I could be Jum-hadai like my parents.”

“your parents were Jedi?” she asked. “And you knew them?”

They hadn't asked him much about the time he had been in, they were too busy trying to force him to learn their ways. “I lived with my parents, the Sedai believed that no Jedi would ever be stronger than the child of two Jedi.”

“They were not forbidden the flesh, it is well documented that it leads to the dark side. Where there is love there can be no balance.” She was reciting it by rote.

Stiles frowned again, he shouldn't be teaching this to the knights, they should be teaching him. “My father taught me that love itself was not a sure path to the darkside of my soul, where the force would consume me, but that pain made it easier for the temptations of the force to taunt me and for me to give in to them.” He scratched at his ears, “he said love was the great gift of the Force, but we were forbidden to marry or love outside the order.”

“do you know why?” she asked.

“Because the force extends and enriches us.” He said, “if we married a non force user then they would grow old and die whilst the force maintained us, we would lose them too soon, and their children and their children's children, it was a cruelty that they sought to spare us.”

She nodded as if she understood. It was a simple thing, he expected everyone but Knight Deaton would understand it. “You said that Padawan Martin would be Sedai, what of the other Padawan?”

“I think Padawan Whittemore and Padawan McCall will fail the testing.” Stiles said, “Deaton has ill prepared Padawan McCall for loss, he has a temper although he tries to control it and has thrown a tantrum when he lost at sparring, although he did try to hide it. He is fascinated unduly with Merchant Argent and spends most evenings lamenting about how they can't be together because he is to be a jedi, but he loves being a jedi though he speaks against it, about how he was taken from his mother. I understand these things are normal for a Padawan, but he does not know how to move on from that rage.”

“and Padawan Whittemore?” She asked, she herself did not have a padawan.

Stiles sighed, “he wants to impress too much, he's good but he'll never be good enough in his own head, he will betray without meaning to.” She nodded. “But they won't listen to me, I understand they don't listen to the Padawan much, do they?”

“No, many Jedi do not.” She agreed softly.

“You can control your emotions.” She said.

“No, Knight Marin, I can't control my emotions, it's not my nature or those of my kind, we are quick tempered, we talk too much and feel everything keenly,” he stopped, “but I am not afraid of my emotions, I don't have to wrap myself in the force because I know that sadness will pass, I know that joy will pass. My fear is a fleeting thing because I know it is more important that I know to overcome my fear than not to feel it.” 

She made a strange noise then, one that he would have called a sigh in anyone else. “How strange,” she said, “but perhaps exactly what we need. Do you know Knight Hale?”

“I am grateful to her sacrifice, I know that she did not die that I could be found but it was because she did die that I was found and I will always be grateful to her for that.” It sounded like a rote answer even to him.

“It was the force's will that you be found.” Marin corrected him. “But I meant her brother, he walks close to the dark side for he has lost so much that he does not know what to feel but rage.” She tilted her head so that her black braid moved from over her shoulder to fall down straight to her tail. “You can control your emotions, perhaps you can teach him to be your Jum-hadai.”

“So the Council might still us both.” Stiles said bluntly.

“Or you save you both from the Dark Side.” She said, “both of you would make excellent Sith Hunters, but with nothing left but grief and anger I can use neither of you. I cannot protect you from Knight Deaton,” she said calmly, “but I can teach you to protect yourself.”

“and in exchange?” He asked, he wasn't so naïve as to think she wanted nothing.

“In exchange you train him to control his emotions and he trains you to master the force as we use it. You pass your trials and you serve the Council looking for Sith, you protect the Jedi, which will give you leave to record what you know, to train the other Sith hunters those little tricks that you have taught me.” 

He smiled, his ears perked up on top of his head. “I think we could reach a deal, Knight Marin, but I'm not going to help him because you asked me to.”

“I did not think it would be so simple,” Knight Marin answered, “I think you will help him because it will put a chink in the plans of Knight Deaton and right now that is the thing you want most.”

“I'm not quite that vindictive,” he said, “I'd just lie about the translation of the Codex Aleera.” He said, “I'll help Knight Hale, but you'll have to keep your word.”

“I will speak to Master Stilinski, he will help us both, Knight Hale was his padawan before he went through the trial.” With that she turned and with her claws clicking on the floor she left the workroom, leaving Stiles to his punishment.


	13. Alphas are idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek does not expect to see an omega between his sisters at dinner, he's waited so long for his omega, his Stas to come for him, and another there's another wearing Hale colours, well temper tantrums aren't that out of fashion
> 
> a/b/o dynamics
> 
> in this young omegas are married early and sequestered in Maidenvaults until their first heat, Stiles hasn't had his heat yet and it's been seven years.  
> fantasy au

The Omega was sat between his sisters when Derek came into the main dining Hall, but the scent of him seemed to eddy around the candles with an all over itchiness and spice. When he came in the Omega lifted his head and looked right at him, like he was sighting along a crossbow, then Cora said something that made the Omega laugh. It ran through Derek like a dose of the salts, and he sat down, at the far end of the high table, with a harrumphing sigh.

The Omega was tall and lithe, with slim hands that were reaching across the table for the bread, and when he smiled Derek felt it cut through him. He was wearing something unusual for an Omega, who normally wore coats pleated through the front to give the illusion of pregnancy even when they were not, but although the jacket was cut the same it lacked the peplum and so ended at his waist, where a dark red sash was tied around his belly, between jacket and the slow slung pants that all Omegas wore.

He had a long, slim throat around which he wore a black velvet collar laced up the front and knotted with a pin of bright carnelian the size of Derek's thumbnail suggesting he was already married. The Omega was in the royal Hale colours.

Derek lifted a carafe of wine and a loaf of bread, stuffing it into his jacket. He had no intention of being here for the rest of this.

“Oh, don't mind Derek,” Cora said, “he likes animals more than people.” Derek didn't hear the Omega's response.

–--

Derek had, like most royals, married young for the political gain of Triskel. He had been nine years old and his bride, a young male Omega, had been three. Mostly his memory of it had not been the ceremony, but how the child had been shy hiding behind his mother's skirts until it was time to take them apart when the child had clung on with his teeth and didn't want to let go.

They had met again when the Omega was eight and his mother had died, Derek had been fifteen, on the verge of his first rut, but had taken the long journey with his mother. The Omega then had been a small slim child with large brown eyes and a soft mouth. He hadn't said a word to Derek, and the following year he had entered the Maidenvault of Ecsed to await his first heat like a good Omega and although they wrote he hadn't seen his Omega in seven years.

It had been a long seven years. Most Omegas started their heat early, but the scent and mate-drive came in before then, so they were sequestered in the Maidenvault with elderly Omegas watching over them, keeping them safe from Alphas unwilling to wait for marriages that were arranged for them. Maidenvaults were often kept more secure than the national treasury.

Derek stuffed the bread into his mouth and took a large bite. He'd been good, hadn't he, waited like a good alpha was supposed to wait, and hadn't begged for a token of his scent. He hadn't dallied with betas, like most alphas did, and now his sisters were parading a married omega in front of him like it was acceptable. He'd wait for his boy, his Stas, until he came into heat, until he was old enough to spend his life with him. 

His letters showed Stas to be a clever, witty young man who was willing to listen to whatever gripe Derek shared with him, about his sisters, about his uncle, about the weather, and would write up to three times a week and Derek never pushed for a token, for a lock of hair or a kerchief and now his damn sisters were at it again.

He took a slug of wine from the jug and sat at his desk, pulling out the last of Stas' letters. He hadn't even unfolded it when there was a knock on the door.

“G'way!” he shouted at it.

“No.” The Omega said as he pushed open the door and walking in. He was beautiful, with soft dark hair, large cinnamon eyes and a soft tart mouth. The collar he wore was a soft velvet trimmed in lace and Derek wanted to remove the carnelian clasp and sink his teeth into the butter soft skin underneath it. The room was suddenly full of the smell of him and every alpha instinct Derek had was telling him to bend the boy over and knot him.

“I didn't invite you in.” Derek said moving over and crowding the Omega against the wall in the hope he would go away. It didn't work, instead the Omega looked across at his lips, they were of a height, 

“You didn't have to leave supper, you brought down the boar that was roasted, that means the best cut is yours.” The Omega smelled perfect, warm and slightly spicy and Derek had been so good, surely he deserved, he stopped himself. This was not his Stas. He wouldn't do that to his Omega.

“If your Alpha were here he would paddle you for being so forward.” Derek said but he couldn't pull himself away from the corner he had the boy crowded into. The smell of him was heady, the smell of young Omega, ripe and verdant and Derek's cock was hard in his pants.

“Oh he would, would he?” Derek could hear the laughter in his voice as he spoke.

“He'd bend you over and smack that ass raw.” Derek was growling, he could feel it rumbling, “you shouldn't be here.”

“where should I be?” the boy's voice was cracked, he tilted his head away so instead of staring at Derek like he was supper and the Omega wanted to lick the plate.

“With your alpha.” Derek said and pulled away, trying not to watch the way the breath caught in the Omega's chest, causing him to pant.

Then the boy took one step forward, then a second, “you don't recognise me at all, do you?” he asked, and then he brought his hands, long thin beautiful hands to the carnelian in the hollow of his throat, pulling it free, then unthreading the laces of the corset around his neck, the velvet falling away to show the bitemark in the curve of his neck, and there in the centre of it, a small Hale triskelion.

“Stas?” Derek asked.

“Most people call me Stiles now.” The Omega answered, smiling sheepishly.

“But,” Derek protested, “you haven't had your heat, I,” Stiles wasn't supposed to leave the Maidenvault until he had his heat and his last letter.

“Turns out alphas are idiots.” Stiles grinned at him. His mouth was so soft, derek wanted nothing more than to kiss it. “Omegas don't have heats apart from their alphas if they've accepted the claim. So, when I bit you...” he was cut off as Derek kissed him.

\---

Later, lying in their bed with Derek's knot tight inside him. “I honestly thought that you left supper because you wanted me to follow you.”

Derek chuffed a laugh into Stiles' shoulder. The whole of him was bare to the moonlight, and sugar dusted with dark moles, but his skin was buttery and so responsive to touch, he marked beautifully. “I thought if I didn't get out of there there would be an angry alpha after my head.”

Stiles smiled into the pillow, “I wanted to surprise you, when my nurse explained why I was only having pseudo heats and everyone felt so sheepish I had to come straight to you. My father sent word to Laura, she knew I'd be here, I told her not to tell you. I thought you'd recognise me.”

“I haven't seen you since you were eight years old.” Derek mumbled into his hair, still taking sucking great breaths of the scent of him, soft and warm and his.

“Excuses, excuses,” Stiles smiled and reached around to pull Derek's arm from where it draped along his side over his front, and squeezed his fingers. “It's true, alphas are idiots.”


	14. A night in Mexico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Cora is somewhere in South America during a celebration. Loud noises, bright colors, and thank fully she's an alpha and can handle all that. What she can't seem to handle is the dark beautiful woman that keeps catching her eyes in the crowd, before disappearing just as quickly. A chase, leads her to an alley, an alleyway of whispered words, dangerous touches, and secret kisses. She tastes like spicy chocolate, and never says her name before disappearing again. Cora vows to find her.

There’s music in the air, and spices from the food, the air thick with dust from their dancing, and there are strings of lights hanging from strings around the plaza. There are masks and magic and cinnamon and chili and music and camaraderie and it’s wonderful, feeling like sugar on her skin.

The girl is wearing a dark wig, stitched through with amaryllis and she’s wearing a black fox mask but it leaves her mouth free, and her lips are painted thick and dark.

She doesn’t say anything, just cocks her head under that black mask painted with red and then licks her lips. She’s smaller than Cora, wearing espadrille mules that tie up her calves and a red skirt with a white blouse, like something out of a legend, but for the silver bracelet on her wrist with it’s digital display, and around her neck she wears a pendant with a wolf under the moon.

She snakes her hand around Cora’s waist, through the black dress Cora is wearing she can feel her hand, small and her nails, sharp but human. She tilts her mouth and with a head full of magic Cora leans down and kisses her. She tastes of chili and chocolate and sharp sharp lime. 

There are people all around them, dancing, hip to hip, and so no one notices when that small hand with it’s black and red nails reaches down between Cora’s legs, touching her hard with everyone there, the green eyes she can see through the mask seem to be challenging her.

"Not here." Cora says and pulls the hand back, the gloss is smeared around the fox’s mouth and she licks at it as she leads her to a nearby alleyway and then into the small house Cora calls her own, pressing her down to the stairs and yanking down her blouse from her shoulders to reveal her breasts.

"fuck yes," THe fox says as Cora pulls up her skirt with her hand and starts to rub at the fox through the fabric of her panties, letting her rock her hips against the friction. "Harder." She moans splaying her legs to give more of herself to that hand even as she arches her back to push her breast into Cora’s mouth, the wig starts to fall away but Cora doesn’t even look as she rubs, pushing down the panties with her thumb and thrusting three fingers twisted together into the fox’s cunt. "Just like that," she says.

"Still think you can handle a wolf?" Cora says nipping and biting at the fox’s jaw.

The fox just smirks at her, “You’re the one doing all the work.”


	15. Between Breaths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: After the first time Scott and Allison had sex, Allison played "I Just Had Sex" on a loop for two weeks running, sometimes blasting it to annoy her parents, sometimes on a low murmur, sometimes while she was running.

I don’t know that song (advantages of being British) so I thought I’d be more subtle with this one 

The song is bassy with a driving beat and a whispery vocal and it’s just so apropos, it feels like the pleasant ache after a good fuck, even if Scott came far too quickly after a few rabbit thrusts but he was good about using his hand to get her off afterwards, but she has those aches in odd places that suggest a good fuck, even if it was a bit mediocre.

She’s in the kitchen, headphones on, ipod stuffed into the waistband of her boxers, making tea. Her body finding the rhythm of the keys as they’re played, her hips hitting the driving plink percussion and the stirring stopping as she sings “please, please, please, don’t take it, take it take it easy on me, just make it make it make it harder to breathe.” And turns around, and her Dad is standing in the kitchen doorway with his mouth open and then he closes it. 

"I saw nothing." he said, backing away from the doorway. She looks down at what she’s wearing, sloppy yoga sweater hanging off her hips and boy shorts that are still inside out, with a pair of thick handmade socks.

She shrugs and goes back to singing “So I’ll climb on top and I’ll never stop till I make you forget who you are and just feel.”


	16. Law and Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa dreams take a strange turn when she falls asleep watching a police drama. The Sheriff makes a very 'oh my gosh! I am never telling him ever!!' sexy appearance in it. The next day Melissa can't even look at him, without thinking about it. The Sheriff thinks this means she's mad at him, and starts to do a gazillion things to try and make her happy again. He does a bit of famous Stilinski flailing that most only think Stiles is capable of. Oh no! It's hereditary.

She assumed it was her own fault, after all she fell asleep during law and order and it was followed by a movie she knew was full of completely gratuitous sex scenes, but she was so tired, and the chair was comfortable, and when she came home she needed the blanket from the back of the couch because it had just been one of those days.

Dinner was last night’s lasagna reheated, and it was always better the next day and she had made enough because she knew that the 12-10pm shift was evil. So she’d eaten curled up on the coach with nana’s crocheted blanket and her lasagna and law and order and fell asleep.

She woke up horny and out of sorts, still tasting the sheriff’s fingers in her mouth, and she’d be a liar if she’d say she hadn’t noticed his hands, he had strong fingers and they were pleasantly thick and well kept, and it had been a long time. She stumbled upstairs, her clogs left by the couch, she could clean up later. And if she thought about his hands as she lay in the dark, vibrator in her panties and fingers pinching her nipples it was no one’s business but her own.

Well until the next morning when he swung by the hospital and she couldn’t look at him, because he was as expressive with his hands as his son, who she thought if she ever wanted to shut up she’d have to tie his hands behind his back, and that gave her another image, of the sheriff using those hands to pull her arms back behind her back and fixing them with zip ties so her breasts were shoved forward where he could pinch and rub at them, nipping at them, and the memory of the deliciously shuddering orgasm she had had the night before at the thought of his hands.

Yeah, this was going to be awkward.


	17. What the Fox says

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: lol! I know the fox noises are terrifying. I thought the idea that Kira can make these terrifying noises, like serious nightmare fuel, and Scott is like 'O.O I have weird boners.', because for whatever reason, he thinks all the noises are cute coming out of her, nightmare fuel, but still cute. Sorta... kinda. Well, it's cute when she realizes it... and Scott gets to see where else she blushes.

The first time they have sex Kira bites her finger bloody trying to keep quiet, and Scott pulls her finger away, kisses it and says “I want to hear you.”

The second time they have sex she tries to muffle herself with her arm and by shoving her face into the pillow, and afterwards Scott reassures her, stroking her hair as the orgasm blush fades from her skin, telling her she can’t embarrass herself with her noises.

It takes a few more times before she’s comfortable enough to let them escape, a thin reedy and vibrating howl of a noise as he sucks on her clit, and Scott raises his head from between her thighs, his chin shining with her, and says “what the fuck was that?”

It takes another ten times before he has managed to reassure her that he was just surprised and it really is sexy, no really, he likes that she makes those noises, and that it’s not weird, it’s foxy. She hits him with a pillow.


	18. The Smell pool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The werewolf nose can pick up many scents, including the leftover smell of spunk from Stiles' masturbating. Scott decides to start keeping a running tally. Eventually it catches on, and a betting pool starts for when Stiles' will realize what they are tallying. Peter eventually show up at his house and says 'You realize we've been keeping a count of how often you play with yourself. Can you tell everyone you know tomorrow at 2pm? I have $200 riding on it.'

The bet started at $1, three months before, there was a chalk board with dates on it, each one erased as it flew past, another dollar gave another guess on the calendar - after two months they had given up even the pretense of being subtle. Stiles could hear Scott say “two on friday, right, I’ll put that down for you.” before putting it into his phone and reminding them about the dollar.

Stiles just though it was some sort of wolf thing, that they had a pool to measure how many times a wolf flashed his eyes, and Scott’s answer of “five times so far today” made him think it was Isaac, he had the least control.

So come Thursday he wasn’t expecting to step out of the shower with a towel around his waist and another around his head, singing “dancing queen” by Abba to find Peter swiveled around in Stiles’ computer chair like Doctor Evil. All he was missing was the cat.

Stiles immediately moved his hands to cover his boobs, well where they would have been if he was a girl. The lyric had come out “dancing queen, young and sweet, only seven aarrrgggh geddafuckoutamahouse!”

"You disappoint me, Stiles." Peter said, templing his hands in front of him so he looked even more like Doctor Evil. "I had thought you would have figured it out by now."

"Figured what out?" he asked, "if this is about the werewolf chest waxing I’m well aware and I happen to like my three hairs," he thrust his chest out proudly to Peter to show them, Peter did not look impressed.

"You are aware every time you beat off we can smell it, right, like twice in the shower, and" he sniffed the air, "fingering yourself, lemon scented lube and," another deep sniff, "lime scented soap, right now you’re like a spunk coated sprite." 

Stiles’ towels were white, it just made his blush look deeper. “GET OUT!”

"We’ve been keeping a tally, really, your recovery rate is remarkable."

"GET OUT!"

"but here’s the thing, there’s a pool on when you’d notice what we were keeping track of, it’s a good way to train the younger wolves senses you know," he leered, "and well, it’s not an unpleasant thing to smell, young and virginal and fruit scented, we can smell how you explore, how you enjoy what you do…"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!" Stiles was halfway to his phone.

"There’s a pot, you know." Peter continued, "and I want to win, so if you could let them know you’re angry, tomorrow, at say two." He stood up, moving towards the window, "I figure we can have a fifty fifty split, $200 each." He grinned at Stiles then. "Of course I won’t let Scott know that his count is way off, it’s not even half, is it?" And with that he jumped out of the window leaving Stiles stood there in his towel wondering just how much wolfsbane he could get for $200, because as much as he hated Peter, $200 would get the tool for pulling the dents out of his jeep’s bodywork off ebay.


	19. A different kind of knot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone thinks Jackson is the one who is desperately in need of a really good bondage session. Truth is, Danny and Stiles are the ones who would get into it. Danny is so in control of himself that letting go for a while would be one of the most luxuriant things he could ever find. Stiles doesn't know how much he needs to just switch off and just float in the hands of someone who really knows the ropes. Pun intended.

It’s not about sex, although there is an element of that to it, what with the nudity and the orgasms, but it was never about sex, and what surprised him was how Derek understood that. How he knew that Stiles felt safe in the ropes, in the criss cross of the jute lattice across his chest, the hard knots here and there pressing into the muscles and pushing the tension out where they made a corset around his chest, cinched in around his waist, before looping to form a collar, and straps, before dipping down to a cherry knot that rubbed against the pucker of his ass, separating his balls, and wrapped around his cock like a ring. 

There were two types of rope work like this, the ones he could wear under his clothes, the ones that Derek got up two hours early to tie with capable hands rubbed raw by the ropes movement, and the ones like this, with the ropes tied taut around his thighs and shins, his feet bound together and his wrists tied to his ankles, and the angry red marks they leave on his skin like ropes made of bruises.

It’s not about sex, Stiles knows, lying there on the coffee table, low and solid and cool against his face, against the blindfold and tie, it’s about safety and trust, it’s about knowing that Derek understands and if he needs to Derek will cut the ropes and free him, it’s about letting go and trusting the ropes to hold him, as Derek reaches down and strokes his head. It’s above love, it’s something other, something them.

 

(Stiles' bondage looks like this)


	20. Anger and blindfolds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boyd prefers soft, pleasant, and sweet lovemaking when he's with Erica. Erica though, is a wild child, and is always bringing out new toys, or lube, or ideas she read about on the interne. Everything changes when she takes out the blindfold. Boyd does want to be blinded, so she uses it. Turns out that soft, pleasant, slow and sweet lovemaking is something Erica really enjoys when she's blindfolded, she peeks and for once sees the look of wonder that Boyd gets when he touches her.

Erica is full of anger, it’s in every part of her, and it falls from her like electric sparks when she shakes her head, but Boyd’s not. He likes the calm, the silence between her heart beats the way it drowns out the sound, she’s active, and he is passive and for the most part that suits them.

Derek is understanding about the two of them, he’s not happy, per se, for them to have sex at the train depot but he’d rather they have it there than anywhere else, but his instructions were, you’re going to do it, here’s a sandalwood and vanilla scented candle, a yankee candle one in a real glass jar, the sort that costs $50 and Boyd’s mom calls a terrible waste of money with the instruction to let it burn for at least an hour afterwards. That’s Derek’s proviso, that the train station doesn’t smell like sex, but he was the one who went to the drug store for the condoms, and he was the one who got Erica on the pill, just in case. Derek’s a good alpha like that. He gave them all candles and condoms and a disapproving eyebrow.

but erica wants to try things, things with strange names that she found off the internet, and things that she’s heard about, some of which Boyd is sure she’s made up. She fucks with anger, and Boyd doesn’t want that. He doesn’t ask where she got the blindfold, but just shook his head and said “I don’t want that,” and for a second she has a moue of discontent and then just pulls it on over her own head.

It’s like a switch has been pulled, like the anger is drained out of her, and the noises she makes are pleading not angry as he sucks on her breasts and gets to slowly splay his fingers across the soft skin of her belly, the delighted exhalations she makes when he nips the skin at her knees with his teeth and the sigh when he pushes inside her, slicked and gloved, and she’s almost lax with pleasure as he slowly thrusts into her, and this is how Boyd wants it, with the slow silence between heartbeats and the soft exhalations fucked out of her, not fought.

Where he can watch her take her pleasure as it should be, slow and langourous and so fucking good, instead of pulled out of him with all the force she can muster.


	21. tumblr song prompts sentence fics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to spark up the muse for work on the big bang so I threw it open to my followers to prompt me with a song and I'd write a Sterek sentence fic (some are a few sentences) based on it  
> going where the muse went within 5 mins  
> these are the result

_Love you More by Raccoon_

Three years is a long time, but the chance was too good to miss, training in Prague under one of the foremost emissaries, and attending the university there with a full ride, and Prague was wonderful, the people friendly, the food good, the beer cheap, but it lacked one thing, the man standing waiting in the airport who managed to get better looking despite their skype calls every night, and who would always be there.

 

_Passive by A Perfect Circle_

Death is not the end, Stiles thinks as he draws the last of the runes around what remains of Derek’s corpse, not here, not now, not whilst Stiles still draws breath.

 

_Bring it on home to me Sam Cooke_

The music swells, slow and intimate between them as they dance in the middle of the room, Stiles arms draped over Derek’s shoulders, and Derek’s on Stiles’ hips, their foreheads pressed together as they step and sway and drown in each other, mouths saying words that somehow always seem to mean I love you.

 

_Altes Fieber by Die Toten Hosen_

There are three cups at the table, though only two men sit there. They come in every day and have the same order, three cups, though one is poured away. The two of them sit in silence, holding hands, before there is a small smile shared between them, soft and sad,  before they get up and leave - the full coffee cup left on the table behind them.

 

_The Manticore’s Lullaby by SJ Tucker_

Stiles voice lilts and rises as he sings, the melody old and traditional, and the song one of promise, except every now and again, as Derek watches him, rock back and forth on the old wooden chair - from a good will and draped with quilts - with their cub nestled against his breastbone Derek wonders if Stiles has changed the words and the wood creaks and whispers under them, because not many lullabies feature werewolves he’s sure, his heart warms at the sight, mate and cub and a song about the werewolves in the dark wood.

 

_Thistle and Weeds by Mumford and Sons_

Hope is a rope they give you to hang yourself, Stiles knows, the instructions  are cruel and the winters harsh. Hope is a tease, draping herself along your tongue so you drown herself in her waters. He gathers the flowers regardless, thick sharp thistles and downy weeds, enough he knows, to fill a marriage bed. Sometimes hope is all you have.

 

_Kiss me slowly by Parachute_

Manhattan sprawled outside the hotel windows like an indulgent cat, as Stiles stood there, Derek wrapped around him like a blanket, trading slow lazy kisses, soft drags of lips against each other with some top 40’s station playing from the bedroom as the sun set over Manhattan in swathes or purple and blue and pink.


	22. Delenda Est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bladerunner au i toyed around with  
> this is unfinished but it's quite long and actually kinda decent  
> you dont' want to know where it was going to go

Fic: Delenda Est  
Author: Seraphim Grace  
Series: Teen Wolf  
Rating: M/E  
Pairing: Sterek  
Notes: the Bladerunner au no one wanted

\----

 

Derek has no idea who could be at his door. The rain is sheeting down like cascades of needles, and the dark close about. He lives too far from the city for it to be random, someone has come here, probably in a spinner, though he didn't hear it, looking for him. Hale takes his Izo from the drawer, the familiar weight of the gun in his hand reminding him too much of what he was, before he cracks open the door.

His first thought is that it is a kid, fourteen years old at most, long and gangly with none of the bulk of the later years of puberty, soft skin and dark wet hair - but the eyes - they aren’t human. Old man Chew has done himself proud with those.

The kid, a Lolita model nexus, is rainslicked, his dark hair falling down around his round face, and his lips slightly open, shivering slightly in the cold. “Are you Derek Hale?” he asks in a voice that is strangely deep, he has his arms wrapped around himself, still wearing the clothes that had been his in the city. He wears a small half jacket, sheer plastic, open over his chest to show a small vest, barely more than a bra, and tight micro shorts fixed to garters which hold up bright purple stockings, and old army boots. There is little of a child in the Lolita.

“What do you want?” Derek growls, there is no way he is letting him into his house. This is his safe space away from the shit of the city, maybe he should have just gone offworld given the chance. He deserves somewhere free of the bullshit and the hate and the rain and the replicants.

"Are you a runner?" the kid asks, he looks so young and so earnest, but he probably would for all of his short life. They were designed like that - the Lolita; Designed to be some pervert's fantasy to fuck, a kid that would never change; never grow up, and when they got bored of them there was always a new model to buy. You could even trade the old ones in for a discount. It doesn't explain why one of them is on his doorstep at oh dark thirty in the pissing pouring rain. 

Derek doesn't know if it is rain or tears in the Lolita's inhuman eyes. They look like gold beads in his head, over large in the way that a child's often are, and his mouth looks like a smear of dark pink paint, pulled apart by the meat of a thumb to reveal the teeth underneath.

"Why do you want to know?" Derek asks, he still has his Izo in his hand, cocked, just in case.

"I'm," the Lolita starts, looking for the words and finding none. "I," he stops again, "Paige sent me, she said," he takes a deep breath, "she said you could be trusted."

Derek flips the safety on the Izo, slipping it into the waistbands of his pants before opens the door. He should be past the point where her name still makes him do what she wants.

The kid remains there, just inside the door, in a puddle of rainwater, shivering. His hair, now he was in the half light from Derek's lamp, is violet, but his brows are a dark line. The fabric of his shorts and vest are a dark navy in a synthetic fabric woven to look like stars. His make up is smeared around his eyes and he looks much younger than they had intended like that. 

Derek moves to the counter and pours himself a cup of coffee, then a second cup which he offers to the Lolita. "What is it that Paige thinks I can be trusted with?" He asks. It had been years since he'd seen Paige, since before he retired. She worked for CARS, and he was a Runner. It was a match made in Hell but she had a mole just under her left eye that had haunted him for months; still haunts him now, truth be told. If CARS had sent him here there was something to hide. The boy takes the coffee can gratefully, but doesn't make an attempt to drink from it, just holds it, trying to leech the heat from the cup. "Anyone after you?"

The kid shakes his head, rain falling from his violet hair in perfect droplets. Derek puts down his coffee and went into the bedroom. His robe was on a hook on the back of the door, and he pulled it down, before getting a towel from his bedroom. The boy hasn't moved from the door. "Here," Derek thrusts them at them, "get yourself dry."

It isn't a strip tease, because there was no tease to it, but it is slow and ponderous, the synthetic fabrics wet enough to cling to skin, unscarred and unlived in. There is no hair, nothing to break the illusion that this was a child, except the colour of his hair and the brightness of his eyes. When the kid had wrapped his hair up in the towel, like a turban, and pulled the robe over his naked skin, pale like old photos of cream, without moving away from the door, Derek moves him, bodily because the kid doesn't want to move otherwise, from the door to the chair beside the heater.

Derek doesn't know when he'd shifted from Lolita to boy, to kid.

"How'd you get here, kid?" Derek asks, taking the seat opposite him, knows the kid will spill everything sooner or later, they are good like that, Lolita's, couldn't keep a thing in, gesturing and flailing like their limbs didn't fit, either as graceful as ballerinas or graceless as a newborn giraffe, sometimes both. Derek has put down both.

"Paige gave me a bike, dropped me off in the town." The kid says, "Said you wouldn't open the door if I came by spinner."

Paige is right, he wouldn't have answered a spinner, too often they are just the police department trying to pull him back out of retirement, after McCoy, Deckard and Holden Bryant was left short staffed and Derek had been good at what he did; Too good.

It wasn't CARS that stopped him, it was something much simpler. He had gone to the Tyrell building and watched them shut down the old models. It was so much less human than simply retiring them. Derek had known then he didn't have the stomach for it. He had handed in his registration that day - when he'd stopped vomiting.

Derek doubts that even CARS, the citizens against replicant slavery, knew the horrors that took place in Tyrell's pyramid, especially those in the name of the greater good. The Replicants were to make money, money they used in working out solutions for humanity's mistakes, trying to recreate the Japanese Mirakuru on land so that the forests and plains could be restored after the war, but it meant they treated them like commodities. Even synthetic pets recieved a better end that end of line Replicants.

"Shit," Derek says, thinking of the ride, ten miles at least from the town's outskirts, and the never ending rain. It is no wonder he was soaked to the skin, and as cold as fresh fish. The boy curls up into himself on the chair, pulling his legs up under him to try and warm himself through. His lips at least have lost that blue tinge to them. "You going to tell me why you're here, kid, or just sit there and drink my coffee all night?"

The boy looks into the coffee. He looks remarkably at home in Derek's small place, like he belongs there, maybe he does, Derek thinks, he knows he never has. Should have gone off world, he thinks to himself, for the umpteenth time that day alone.

"I'm dying." The kid says, "soon, I," he stops, licking his lips in a nervous gesture. The boy is a perfect example of programming. "I just didn't want to be alone when it happened. Paige said," he stops again, the words evaporating around him, "she said you'd," he lowers his eyes and shakes his head, his mouth forming a soft moue of distaste at the word, "she said you could be trusted."

The bottom falls out of Derek's world. He can't do this. He can't do this again. Fuck her, Fuck Paige, fuck all of them, and fuck Tyrell in what ever hell his creations sent him to.

"No skin," he stops himself in front of the usual slur, "no replicant has ever undone the kill order. I don't know if it can be done."

"I don't want to fight it." the boy says calmly, "I just," he let out a deep sigh. "I heard you're never truly dead until no one speaks of you any more; until the people who loved you are dead too, I just," He cocked his head, the words lacking, "Paige said if you shot me, if you killed me, you'd never forget me." His eyes are wet with tears again, and he wipes at them fiercely with the side of his hand.

Derek gets out of his chair, goes into the small kitchen and pulls out a bottle of alcohol, pouring himself a large glass, and downing it in two overlarge swallows, feeling the burn down the back of his throat like he has drunk liquid fire. Paige sent the kid here to be shot, for a quick, peaceful death. A bullet in the back of the head, that's why the kid is here, because Derek will loathe himself for doing what has to be done.

He's just a kid, Derek thinks looking at the boy, the Lolita, a doll, no, Derek corrects himself, a fuck doll sold to some offworld pervert, brought here by CARS so Derek can do the thing they haven't the stomach for. "What's your name?" He asks, all the replicants have names he thinks, the boy will be no different.

"Stiles," the boy says, "that's what they call me, they gave me this unpronounceable foreign name but no one can say it, so they just call me Stiles." He unfolds himself from the chair, going to the pile of his clothes and from the pocket of his plastic jacket he pulls out a small wallet, and opens it, from it he takes a small photo, well folded, and creased, most of the ink lifted from it from repeated foldings, from being carried in the wallet, and rubs the pad of his thumb over the image. Then he passes it over to Derek. The picture shows a military man, judging by the uniform, with sandy hair and bright blue eyes, he's a handsome man with lines on his forehead and a stolid expression, like he's trying to work out the best way to fix the universe. "That's my dad," Stiles says, "Sorry, that's who I thought was my dad. I remember him, but I don't think they're my memories." The kid is shaking, "I remember trying to make him eat healthy, I remember falling from the roof and breaking my arm, the bone came out of the skin, but I don't have a scar," he bares the skin of his forearm, rubbing his hand over it, as if surprised by the lack of a scar. "Sometimes I get muddled, but," he stops, licks his lips, his legs are free from the folds of the dressing gown now. "I don't want to be alone."

Derek knows he'll hate himself for it, but he can offer this, a simple act of human kindness. No, he corrects himself, an act of cruelty because kindness would be taking the kid out back and unloading his Izo into his head.

\---

Stiles talks. He talks all the time. Even when he's talking his hands are waving about like he might better explain them. Derek doesn't talk much, but Stiles just fills in the noise, wearing Derek's clothes, as he helps him with the chores, sleeping in Derek's chair, and sharing Derek's food. Sometimes Derek forgets he's anything other than just a kid. Sometimes Derek finds himself looking at the splatter of moles on the kid's neck, and then he reminds himself, this isn't a kid, this is a replicant, and it's dying.

He sees the kid laugh with the shopkeeper, old Mrs Apple, as he helps her carry things about her store, even to the point of picking up a broom to sweep away the day's dust, carried in by boots. He sees him stand over the stove trying to make something healthy out of the food Derek buys and chiding him for his spending habits. He sees him washing himself in the tub in the room Derek calls a bathroom, kneeling in the water and pulling it up over himself with the sponge in an unplanned tease. He sees him lying in the quiet cot in the corner of Derek's small bedroom and ignores the sobs that rack him.

No matter what he says the kid is scared.

Derek supposes in his place he would be too.

Derek sees him look at the photograph far too often, he knows the memories aren't real, as does the kid, but it doesn't make them hurt any less.

During the day he plays the fool, careless, quick to laughter and shining as bright as the sun, but at night it's different, at night, he lies in his small cot, the blankets pulled up tight around his head, waiting until he thinks Derek is asleep and then he cries himself to sleep.

He's not human, Derek reminds himself, he's a machine, a clever automata, a replicant, a copy, but Tyrell are proud of their slogan and put it in everything they make - more human than human - and that means there's a kid lying there in a make do cot in Derek's bedroom crying himself to sleep because he's scared to die and there is nothing he can do to stop it.

Derek doesn't know how long it's been, how long that Stiles has lived in the little house next to the small town of Carthage, he only knows the moon is full when he gets out of his bed and lifts Stiles from the cot and puts him in his own bed, crawling in beside him, wiping away his tears with his thumb, passed the point of pretending not to hear, and humming under his breath until the kid quietens down, until the lullaby finds its way into his mouth, "I knew if I could have the chance I could make those people dance, if only for a while." Singing off key and soft and sweet to the crying child in his arms, the way his mother had before she died. He knew that if the child died now he would have no regrets as to how he treated him.

\---

Lydia Martin looks tired. It’s hard to tell but Derek knows her well, and has for several years. He travels into the city at least once a month to see her. She wears a tailored green suit, and her red hair is perfectly styled without a single hair out of place, her make up is a perfect mask of beauty, but she still looks tired - sat at the hotel’s table with her cigarette forming wreaths of smoke around her like a shield. “You look like shit,” she says as she lifts her cup of coffee to her red mouth, “why did you never go offworld?”

It’s well known that only chickenheads and replicants want to stay on Earth. He doesn’t know why he stayed some days, some days he does. Some days he opens the door to a replicant with violet hair and a golden eyed smile.

“What do you know about inception dates?” he asks.

“Business lunch then,” she asks. He’s never seen her eat, she just drinks coffee laced with brandy and smokes. He doesn’t ask how she keeps her figure, sometimes he wonders if she’s human or the very best that Tyrell industries can make. “I know they’re not what people think they are.” She is silent for a moment, licking the coffee from her lips before she takes a drag from her cigarette, letting it plume from her nostrils, “it’s not a kill order, it’s something else.”

“Then what is it?” he asks. 

She smiles a little, a false cold thing that never reaches her eyes. “What do you know about cybernautics,” she asks, “Tyrell doesn’t work on them, they don’t need to, but the entire nervous system of the replicants is synthetic, it’s incredibly complex, it has a synthetic sheathing that is remarkable” this isn’t what she does, she works with replicant DNA, she builds the models around the nervous system. “It can withstand a lot, but the autonomous systems are,” she stops, “it’s the little things, the heart beating, breathing, hormone production, digestion, all those things the human body does unconsciously, then the conscious things - talking, walking, thinking. It’s an immense strain on the system,” she takes another drag of her cigarette, “four years is what Tyrell guarantees, but when the sheathing fails the wiring sparks and it can go any time after that, it’s impossible to be any more specific.”

“And four years suits them?” Derek asks.

“Perfectly, they’re not making the Nexus any more.” She is calm and crisp.

“Too much threat of rebellion?” Derek’s tone is arch, he can’t keep it from his voice, he’s spent his adult life hunting them down.

“No, too inefficient, human beings are, the new proprietor is more interested in insecta.” She says the word carefully, using the latin term, “they’re stronger, faster, and they last longer with the same materials, no more humans, he thinks it’s cruel, no more free will, no more doubts.”

That surprises Derek, he pulls Stiles photo out of his pocket, “do you know who this is?”

She lifts the photo and briefly glances at it, before she puts it back down, “what have you got yourself into, Derek?” she asks, “you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

“It’s too late for those warnings, Lyds,” he answers.

From the purse on her lap she pulls out a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling something down before she puts it over. “Go here,” she asks, “I can’t do anything for your replicant,” she says, “I recommend you just get it over with, if he’s failing he’s going to fail, there’s no stopping it, if you bring him to Tyrell they can extract his memories for you, but,” she stops, her look is pitying, “you’re,” the words are gone. 

“How does it start? How will I recognise it?”

“Numbness in the extremities,” she reels them off, “they won’t be able to tell temperatures apart, there might be a lag in response times, it’s different with them all, some go easy, some go hard, some take minutes, some months, I can’t be more specific. There might be twitches, muscles that collapse on themselves, it goes on until the autonomous systems shut down. A bullet would be a mercy.”

Derek takes the piece of paper and nods, slipping it into his pocket as he stands up. “It’s been lovely to see you, Lydia,” he tells her. “I wish it was under better circumstances.”

Her smile is sweet and fond, “You’re a good man, Derek Hale,” she says, “go offworld, don’t look back at this shit hole.”

“Will it hurt? The system failure?” Derek doesn’t know why he wants to know, he should go back and put a bullet in Stiles’ cybernetic brain.

“No. There may be a slim chance,” she says then, “Mikage, in Japan, they have made an entirely cybernetic body, if you could transfer the brain, he could live, but the tech is experimental, untested, and very very expensive.” She knows there is no way he could do it, and there is no way the Tyrell company will. “It won’t hurt, Derek, that’s all I can assure you, sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it’s really slow, but as the nerves fry it won’t hurt, you’ll have to watch for damage they can’t feel, treating it as it happens or infection can set it and that can kill them. Here’s my advice for the little its worth,” her tone is sad, “go home, take your nexus and draw it a bath, drown it there and then even if there is no sign of failure yet, and get that bitch over in CARS arrested for mental cruelty, make sure she can’t do this to you again.” Lydia always was too intuitive.


	23. Constantine/stiles fic for play (I was playing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles meets Constantine post the nogitsune possession

John Constantine was rangy, the sort of thin that was one good meal away from gaunt, sprawled back in his chair with a wreathe of cigarette smoke around his head like a halo. His trench coat was folded over the back of the bar’s chair in a messy tumble of cloth, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal old tattoos on his forearms. When Stiles had asked how he got away with smoking indoors in California he’d wiggled his fingers and said magic. He had the same blue eyes and blonde hair as Stiles’ father but there the similarities ended.

Everyone who knew him told Stiles the same thing. John Constantine was a liar, a thief and a conman, he was not to be trusted. He was also, probably, one of the greatest magicians in the world. Or it was an elaborate con. No one was really sure. One thing they did know was he walked among the upper echelons of angels and demons and held his own, which Peter had told him, was either proof of great magic, and the last bit said with some admiration, or one hell of a con.

He was also the only one who could help.

Stiles had curled in on himself in the chair, waved into the bar with a fake id created by magic, a shot of something hot and sharp with aniseed put in front of him. It had the colour of mountain dew but a milky consistency that reminded Stiles of snot. Nevertheless he had done as suggested, and swallowed it whole.

“So,” Constantine, call me John, said after a period, two of the aniseed flavoured mountain dew drinks, and two cigarettes, he was tapping a third between his fingers against the table. “You hungry?”

“I,” Stiles began.

“I could eat,” Constantine cut him off, getting up and going to the bar, when he sat back down, “I ordered you a burger, wondering if you’re going to talk to me.”

“I don’t know where to start,” Stiles said at last.

“You were possessed, kiddo.” Constantine told him, “you’re not alone in that, kids all over get nasty things crawling up inside them, sometimes it’s other kids.”

“It’s not that easy.” Stiles protested. 

Constantine laughed, “yeah, it really is, I’ve been possessed a time or two, know what it’s like.”

“I killed people.”

Constantine’s smile was wry, “Hazard of the job, mate,” Stiles blinked at that. He hadn’t been expected it. “I can stop it happening again, well, I can make it a lot harder for it to happen.” Stiles loosened up a bit at that information. “It’s not how you fall, it’s that you get back up.”

“What happens if I can’t?” Stiles asked, surprised at how small his voice said.

“Then we bury you.” 

“You don’t mess around, do you?”

“No point, I could tell you the shit I tell the parents, it’s going to be okay, you’re going to get over it, but you’re not, so you’re going to learn to do what you’ve got to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Get up, fry an egg, have a ciggy, smile at a pretty girl in the hope she takes you home and has eggs in the fridge for the morning, tilt your head at a pretty boy and hope for tea, appreciate the little things, live with it.”

“And if I want to do more than just live, what if I want to fight back.”

Constantine had a grin like a wolf, Stiles knew enough of them to recognise it. “Then, you learn the first rule of magic, mate, bullshit baffles brains.”

Stiles blinked in shock, “people are gullible,” Constantine continued, “you spin a plausible line of bullshit and they’ll believe you over the truth a hundred times, ever hear of Haven in Maine, one of the most supernatural towns in the world - it has a lot of “gas explosions”.” He sat back with a grin and a “thanks love” when the food arrived, two greasy looking burgers and fat home fries. “You’ll be needing one of these.” He slipped the card across the table, it was what he had used as a false ID. 

“Is that it?” Stiles asked.

“That and a great big pair of brass bollocks,” Constantine agreed, opening his burger to put ketchup on in thick splats. “Bullshit will get you through most of it, you wanna learn?” Stiles nodded. “Summer with me, learn on the job,” he paused, taking a big bite of his burger, “can you sleep in the back of a car? Learn to bullshit, carry some stuff, learn as you go.”

“And the thing left inside me.”

Constantine chewed and then swallowed, “that’s just you, mate, you’ll learn to use it, now eat up, you're a growing lad.”


	24. grandmother fragment

et in arcadia ego

The child craned his head around the door and looked in on the old woman sitting up in the bed. "There's my little man," the old woman said with a smile like sunshine and the boy came clattering into her room, his feet loud despite his lack of shoes to go over to her. "And there's my little Hero." She used the word as a pet name, noisily kissing his head as he softened into her arms, and then climbing up to sit beside her on the bed.

"'M not little," the child protested, "'m almost six." He showed her how many years that was with his fingers, but she just planted a wet and noisy kiss on his cheek before rubbing her cheek the length of his in a scenting gesture.

"You're my little man," she said, "does your Mama know you're up here?" she asked.

The child nodded, "she said I could come in if you were awake but I wasn't to if you were asleep, Nanna."

"Your Mama is very wise." She said, patting him on the tip of his nose with her finger, "you should listen to her."

"Mama has the baby." The boy whined, kicking his feet against the bed.

"Babies grow up," she said, "and little wolves grow into big wolves and then they grow old, like me."

"Nuh, huh," the boy said, "babies poop and cry and smell bad." He buried his face into the curve of her neck and took a deep breath of her and her smells, old paper, lavender, lily of the valley and the sweet pervasive smell of over ripe cherries.

"You were a baby." She says, snuggling into him where he sits on her crocheted bed spread, she has her knitting basket beside the bed and a magazine on the night stand with a jug of water and a glass. "You were a little wriggler and you used to frown all the time."

"Nuh huh," the child tells her.

"You were, you were a wriggly baby, every time someone tried to pick you up you'd wriggle and scrunch your face up and try to get away."

"Laura said I was a sleepy baby, she said I tried to get her to eat my carrots." The boy told her, "I don't like carrots."

"Soon the baby won't be a baby any more, just like soon you'll be too big for Nanna Alice cuddle time." The child was horrified, Nanna Alice cuddle time was the highlight of both their days and he knew it.

"No," he said and clutched at the wool cardigan she wore, it was a soft slubby wool in a pale biscuit colour, he was sure she had made it herself because it was saturated with the smell of her, embrocation and lavender and lily and the sour sweet smell of cherries left too long in the sun.

\--

 

this was a fragment for a fic I didn't have the guts to write, like Perfect Blue buildings, it was just too much

Nanna Alice tells Derek about Death as a friend because she's dying, but Derek starts to see him as an imaginary friend, one that stays with him throughout his life, and who manifests looking like Stiles, and it is heavily implied that Stiles was going to be stillborn/miscarried but for Death (whom Derek calls Todd [like Todt in German]) intervening. But Stiles is not death, but he is touched by him

Derek thinks that the reason everyone around him dies is because Todd is his friend, that it's not deliberate but something that happens when Death is around that much, it's not true and Todd keeps trying to explain that the last thing he is is cruel, the idea being that he was with them in the fire and he took their pain, he held their hands and reassured them they were not alone, but Derek's nto ready to hear that yet


	25. Golddust Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A character study for Laura, it sort of died when i was working on it

Gold Dust Woman  
(https://8tracks.com/athenadark/untitled-mix-2)

Derek's therapist smells like hot dry paper and a sort of spiced mustiness that the air conditioning doesn't quite blow away, caught like the ghosts of old meals in the folds of her skin. She is beautiful, dark skinned with long black hair she wears in a tidy bun at the back of her neck, and brightly coloured sari draped over her. Her bindi looks suspiciously like a pearl. She sits on the couch outside her office, leaning forward so the skin of her flat stomach falls into comforting folds. "Alpha Hale," she says in a voice like the wind across a desert, "there is much I cannot discuss with you," Laura knows that, "but there is much you also need to understand to help your brother."

Laura knows that. Everything must be about him. The alpha belongs to the pack, not the pack to the alpha. It had been her first lesson at her mother's feet.

She will always give him what he needs, because he is her brother; because he is her pack.

"What can you tell me?" Laura asks, because he is her beta and her brother and she cannot get the image of him in the bath with his arms slit open so he can sleep. She hadn't known what to say and just turned and walked away.

She had come back a few hours later with a first aid kit she wasn't sure that they needed, to find he had cleaned the bathroom so well it was like nothing had ever happened.

Her mother had the best lawyers in the city on retainer, even before the fire. They were why they had come to New York, because Laura hadn't known what to do, she still didn't, but they offered answers, even if she wasn't sure they knew better than she did. Her lawyer, barely old enough to be her father, and only then if she had been born in high school, handsome with moles and sandy dark hair over brown eyes, Derek's type she noticed, seemed to know what to do, and didn't care if she phoned him at three in the morning because she had found her brother in the bath with his wrists open to the bone.

Harvey had known what to do, even though Laura hadn't.

Harvey had found the best supernatural therapist in the states, conveniently based in New York although Laura would have moved to be within her range. Laura dragged her brother here every monday after school, after Derek came in with his uniform scuffed from fighting, one time the sleeve ripped from the shoulder seam, and a form to buy a new blazer, so that Derek could talk to someone - he clearly couldn't talk to her.

And now Sabi sat on the couch facing her, her hands folded patiently in her lap, painted with henna designs and curlicues, seeds and dots, and Laura almost didn't want to hear what she was about to say. "He is a child," Sabi says, "and like a child he blames himself for the fire, although he knows, intellectually it was not his fault." There was nothing Laura could say to that. She blamed herself although she had been with Derek at the basketball game. If the game hadn't gone into overtime she and Derek would have died with their parents.

"He needs an outlet, something that will both challenge and punish him." She stands up, the wire thread in her sari catching the sunlight from the late afternoon through the buildings in Manhattan.

Laura hates New York, she hates the brownstone in Brooklyn that Harvey found for them. She hates the fake wilderness of central park. She hates the subway and the private cars. She hates the train out to the country that they take on the days of full moons. She hates Derek's private school with it's crisp uniforms that she replaces at least once a month. She hates New York, but right now New York is what is best for Derek so they are here. An alpha belongs to her pack, not the pack to the alpha.

In her head the old Talking Heads song, the one that reminds her so much of Peter is playing on repeat. "Take me to the river, drop me in the water, Take me to the river, dip me in the water, Washing me down, washing me down." She wonders if the nurses remember to play it for him, she asked them. Leaving Peter behind was what was best. Harvey offered to bring him to New York but the doctors said it was best to leave him there, Harvey suggested if he was hurt then he wouldn't be a target to hunters. He would be safe there, but she still calls, reads to him down the phone line and asks the nurses to play his favourite album at least once a week. To put headphones on him and let him listen to audio books, god knows he loved to read, in her minds eye he's still folded into quiet corners of the house with a book in his hand and a smirk on his lips.

she ignored the way that Harvey's smirk reminded her of Peter, and how suddenly the air was full of the smell of roast pork, and the pop crackle snap of bacon fat in the pan.

"Here," Sabi says and hands Laura a business card for a gym in Clinton, New York. "It's run by a friend in the community," Sabi is careful never to name others. She is, and Laura is, and she is careful to use the old words, the words of secrecy and power. She addresses everyone by their correct titles, except for Derek, whom she calls cana and offers him gestures with her paper dry palms he won't take from Laura.

Duke runs his hands down the length of her back, trying to impress the curve of her into his memory. He tells her maybe she needs to talk to someone. She thinks of the way he sighs into her mouth, the hard skin on his heels that bites into her thighs, the golden black of his claws, and wonders why she doesnt' talk to him. She thinks of Harvey with his splatter of moles and smiling eyes and smirking mouth and her three AM phone calls. She thinks of the long phonecalls she gives Peter where she reads to him.

She is alpha. 

She belongs to her pack.

She's not the one who needs therapy.

Harvey is the one there when Derek is called into the principal's office. Duke is the one there when they need to run in the woods and hangs on the line when she's riding the train, one step away from a panic attack.

She feels like she was broken apart and ptu back wrong like the line in Peter's song "her heart's like crazy paving, upside down and back to front," and how Peter had taken her out into the yard and found a load of old paving slabs, perhaps he bought them, and they had broken them apart and placed them down into the concrete in new patterns and he said "that's crazy paving, Lola" so she would understand. 

It was on that patio that they found him, his clothes melted into his skin and his hand reaching to the house, thrown by the explosion as the paramedics pour bottled water over him and the snap crackle pop of the fat under his skin cooking.

"What can they do?" Laura asks, lowering her hands, wondering if she's underdressed in her pencil skirt and blouse, feeling old for her nineteen years, like the weight of the world is sitting in the pit of her stomach.

"Derek thinks he needs to be punished," Sabi says, "he needs to hurt, this will allow him to explore it safely. If this doesn't work, we'll try something else. It will teach him discipline if nothing else." She says it calmly, "have you thought about talking to me?"

Laura thinks about Sabi's office with it's lush velveteen couches and dark ochre walls, the smells of incense that make her head ache and the pale line of her forearms, that moment of desire and the weight of old spices in her hair and on her skin, the flash of the diamond in her nose stud against the afternoon light. There is a moment of desire, of the curiosity of what her thighs would feel like against Laura's own, the weight of her breasts in Laura's hand, whether her armpits would maintain that old spice smell of meals long past, of garam masala and turmeric and others Laura doesn't know the name of. But then the moment is gone.

"I should get Derek home." Laura says, wondering how long she's going to have to spend on youtube tonight to recreate with shadow and brushes what his werewolf healing took away. Laura used to have dreams of going to college, now she's learning to be a make up artist because Derek won't stop getting into fights. She's learning how to mend because Derek has torn his uniform. She's a chauffeur going with Derek to his therapist. She's the wolf Duke mounts and mumbles into her hair, she's the girl that looks down and away from Harvey's gaze as Derek hangs on his every word. She's the girl who phones her vegetable uncle and reads Lovecraft to him in the night.

And in her head she hears David Byrne singing "washing me down, washing me down."

\---

Laura sleeps better in the day. She lies in bed between two am and five when she has to get Derek up for school, in case this is one of those nights when he crawls into bed with her, then when she's painted the bruises on his face that he's supposed to have, that he would have if not for his healing, then she crawls back into her bed, half a bagel lying uncomfortably in her stomach and her mouth still tasting of coffee no matter how thoroughly she brushes her teeth.

She crawls into the bed, curls into a foetal ball beside the twist of the sleigh bed's headboard and sleeps fitfully until early afternoon. When Derek calls her on it, finding her in bed with a book, a kindle she keeps in a red leather case full of old Diana Wynne Jones books finding comfort in the words from before. In Cold Comfort Farm and Prydain and the worlds that remind her of Peter. She is Alpha, and she belongs to her pack. She thinks that when she has finished Lovecraft she might start reading Les Liaisons Dangereuse, in English. She just hopes her voice brings him comfort.

The song is still in her head. She can hear the dum snare of the opening then the slow lazy bass line that cuts in late. She shakes her head and climbs out of bed, noting the clock on the cabinet that says 12.25 meaning she slept for less than five hours, and has that again to kill before Derek gets home from school.

"Hold me, squeeze me, love me, tease me, Till I can't, till I can't, till I can't take no more of it."

She sings under her breath in the shower, feeling like something in missing, that there is a hole in her so deep and dark she will never climb out. Instead she washes perfunctorily, she dresses in her pencil skirts and laboutin heels with their scarlet soles, she blow drys her hair so it's neat, away from her face and paints on her smile with shadows and glosses.

"Push me in the water, drop me in the river, washing me down, washing me down."

\---

Duke never offers Laura a place in his alpha pack. At first she is insulted thinking she is nothing more to him than a convenient hole that he won't break, one who can take what he gives, then she realises he won't ask it of her because he thinks of her so highly.

His apartment is sparse, and there is a neon billboard shining through the window extolling the virtues of Samsung technology. She supposes it doesn't matter to him. His furniture is ugly but comfortable, soft velvets and silk sheets.

His hands are rough against her skin, and his feels like suede under her lips, where she leaves raspberry colour gloss marks, her kisses tasting of powder and rose against his mouth where the lancome gloss leaves her stain.

She loves the sharp sting of his claws shredding her stockings, to the point that she carries a second pair in her purse, a Kelly bag he gave her. She wishes she could keep those red lines, but they are gone by the time he has spent himself inside her, her nuvaring caught behind his knot, as they destroy each other. 

She doesn't even know, sometimes, why she goes to him. Why she lies there in the bed beside him, wondering how long she has before she has to be home for Derek, to make sure there's something to eat, though god knows she can't cook, and listens to the strains of his Fleetwood Mac old people music. She watches the blues and whites of the billboard spill against his skin, the way he breathes and his patrician nose, his sandy hair across the pillow and a voice that sounds like sex.

Did she make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love, is it over now- do you know how, to pick up the pieces and go home?

Part of her knows it's the same age as the song she has stuck in her head, Peter's "Take me to the River," they came out the same year because she remembers Peter telling her. Peter was insistent she knew about music, life wasn’t worth living he had said, without an awesome soundtrack to go with it.

\---

Fogwell’s gym seems human enough. It stinks of old exercise and desperation, of sweated out liquor. It doesn’t seem like it belongs to the community. There are some kids boxing in a ring, she can hear the thud of their hearts and the laughter in their mouths that they can’t quite swallow down, when the Upir approaches her. She wonders if this is Fogwell, or if there is no person to match to the name on the window. “Miss Hale,” he says, his accent is specifically bland with no distinguishing features other than American, many of the old ones take that route. He is the first upir she’s met, but she knew the city was lousy with them.

He is wearing an adidas sweat suit, red, and a thick gold chain and white sneakers. He looks like a rapper from the early eighties but with rockabilly slicked back hair and Elvis style sideburns. He has thick gold framed glasses as well. “You’ll wanna change your shoes.” He tells her, “you’ll break those heels off.” She’s surprised that he doesn’t say you’ll break your ankles, even if they will heal.

Nevertheless she changes in the gym’s horrible ladies changing room, pulling on old sweatpants and bowling shoes that stink of disinfectant. She’s not here to work out, she’s here for Derek.

The path leads down to what looks like an old abandoned subway station, it’s much larger than she expected, without the trains and the two platforms in the dark. “It’s like the Justice League.” She says under her breath at the huge underground cave with little knots of people and the long stairway down from the street.

“More like the Doom Patrol.” Derek tells her.

“Je suis Monsier Mallah.” A mountain of a large black man says from behind them, making them jump, but Derek laughs long and loud and in that instant Laura forgives them everything, not knowing anything else about them, or even what the joke is, but they’ve done something she couldn’t in the last year. They made her brother laugh. Her own laughter sounds like ashes in her mouth.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a witcher au that's been rattling around in my head since august  
> never let it be said i rush into fragments
> 
> set BEFORE the witcher series, just after Caer Morhen first fell. Stiles seeks out Scott, a bear witcher who wandered from the "path"

She stood at the doorway to the house when Stiles swung off his horse, Roscoe 104th of his name - with a clatter of bottles, the twin swords on his back moving with the motion. “I’m here to see your man,” he said. The heavy medallion on his chest landed against his leathers with a smack, and he knew how intimidating he looked.

“He aint done no wrong, master witcher.” She said.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m scaring you, your man and I, we go back, I haven’t been in this part of Temeria for a long time, I thought I’d call by and pass on my greetings, one friend to another” He reached into his pouch and pulled out a few orens, “why don’t you go the inn and get us something to eat, lass, I promise, I’m not going to hurt your man.” 

She seemed to visibly deflate, “my mam said a witcher can’t tell no lies.”

He scrubbed his hand over his white hair with a grin, “now that aint quite true,” he said, “we can lie with the best, but we don’t like to tell no lies, but if we make a promise we’re bound to it, that’s true, lass.”

The house was small, ramshackle but well kept, the path swept and the thatch fresh, the air perfumed with meadowsweet and warm smelling woodsmoke over the usual stenches of the village. A lawn of celandine was couched around a balisse tree. They were freshly planted within the past few years, and a large branch of rowan hung over the door, and the cloth over the shutters was clean and freshly beaten. It looked like the house of a pellar and not a goat farmer.

“It’s been a long time, Stiles.” Scott said from the doorway, “you better have Nilfgaardian lemon in that bag of yours.”

The years had been kinder to Scott than they had to Stiles, he had long since hung up his leathers, his swords in storage somewhere on the property and years of using a hoe and sickle had redefined his muscles, but his pupils were still enlarged to let in more ight until they were almost wholly black, and there was a hint of fang in his mouth when he spoke. Whatever he pretended to be he was still a witcher of the Bear school. “Would I come all this way and not bring your favourite drink?” Stiles asked, touching his fingers to the fox medallion on his chest, “how long has it been, brother?” 

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he had an axe on his shoulder, from where he had been splitting wood but looked like he might turn it on Stiles at any moment. “I walked away.”

“You know we don’t get to do that,” Stiles said. He reached into his satchel and pulled out the clear glass bottle used for Nilfgaardian lemon spirit. It was expensive in this part of Temeria, he offered it out. 

“I didn’t choose this,” Scott hissed, “I didn’t choose to be a freak.”

“NOne of us did,” Stiles answered calmly. “That windmill on the hill, you think the miller one day woke up and decided to mill flour? These are the hands we’re dealt, we play them, but I came to give you a choice, I take your swords and medallion back to Caer Morhen, I tell them you’re dead.”

“I earned those swords.” Scott answered calmly.

“Doing what, chopping wood and feeding goats?” Stiles was angry at that. He had had a long journey. “Scott, either you’re a witcher or you’re not.” He snapped, “I spent the last month in Old Vizima’s sewers clearing out aeschna, I then spent two nights writing down everything I found for the witchers that come after me, because I am the last Witcher of the Fox School and I could have done with my brother to help me. Before then I spent the best part of a year dissecting drowners and drowned dead in a cold store Oxenfurt, where the ice got into my bones, and I would have appreciated a friend to share a cup with. Shall I tell you about the year I went after a nest of Echinopsae and had to have spines removed from my ass because I knew you would have found it hilarious, and you were raising goats and lying with your girl.”

Scott clenched his fists at his sides. “Don’t you talk about my wife like that.” 

“What are you, Scott, a witcher of the bear school, or a goat farmer, because if you’re a goat farmer I’ll take your swords and we’ll leave you to this farce, because it’s only a matter of time before someone notices how quick you heal, how your girl’s belly doesn’t quicken and thinking you a monster calls in a Witcher to deal with it, they might even be scrabbling for orens to pay for one now.”

Scott took a long drink and swallowed before he spoke. “I was taken from my home, I didn’t ask for this.” He said, “to be a freak.”

“None of us did,” Stiles answered, “and we’re not freaks, we’re witchers. I’ll take your swords because I am your friend, because we became friends in Caer Morhen after our Schools fell.”

“So they can make more freaks like us?” Scott asked.

“Caer Morhen fell,” Stiles said going back to his horse. “There will be no more Witchers.”

At that Scott started. “You still running with that werewolf of yours?” He asked

“Who do you think ended up picking those spines from my ass?” Stiles had a grin like an axe wound, “turns out his claws were amazing at it.”

“Do you take him to Caer Morhen come winter?” 

“Like you never took Sorceress Allison or Kira of Koviri there.”

“But here’s a werewolf, and they’re…”

“Grateful for the extra meat and someone to carry the heavy stuff around, moving rocks to fix the wall where the wind cuts in the worst.” Stiles replied, “and he cooks, all those years with Vesemir’s smoked bear meat, but he finds green stuff. They’d get rid of me before they get rid of him.”

“I can’t go back.” Scott asked. “But I can’t give up my swords either.”

Stiles smiled, “we didn’t choose this, Scott, no one in this world gets to choose, the little things, those we get to choose, but the rest is just inevitability. I’m a Fox Witcher in a world where the foxes all died, you’re a bear witcher whose school fell to Koviri machinations. We didn’t choose for that to happen, my father, what I remember of him, was a guard in a small keep to the south of here. He was killed and a Fox Witcher took me in, I don’t remember my mother, but because of that Witcher, Aveyond, I’ve seen the world, I can speak nine languages, and I’ve seen miracles. I’ve also spent a month in Vizima’s sewers in winter freezing my nuts off in knee deep peasant shit, piss and Melitele alone knows what. What I can choose, I do, I prefer Temerian Rye whiskey, I call my horses Roscoe, one dies, i buy another and call it Roscoe, I drink Wives Tears before bed if I’ve been drinking so I don’t get the hangover. I keep dried strawberries in my pack to take the taste of Cat out of my mouth. I’ll order chicken over beef when it’s available, and I will always choose to take a contract when I can.

“I’m giving you a choice, I’ll be back in the morning, give me your swords and I‘ll tell them all you’re dead, or keep them and go back on the path.” He patted the horse on the flank before he swung up, “it’s up to you. Are you a witcher or a goat farmer?”


	27. Not so submissive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is an idea that came to me but had no end, i wanted to see where it went, in a BDSM universe [everyone is either sub/dom/switch etc and there is a test to prove that at school] Lydia tried to game the system and it failed, she has been in a sub/dom relationship with aiden who used it as an excuse to hurt her  
> she took a baseball bat to him  
> now peter has become her dominant

concordance 1

Lydia was sat at the table when the man entered with an armful of files that he placed on the surface in front of her. He was handsome, hair slicked back, neatly shaven, wearing a sweater with a v that was almost deep enough to be scandalous. He was older than her by perhaps as many as twenty years, but had taken great care of himself.

Behind him Lydia could see herself in the mirror. There was a huge bruise on the side of her face and her eye was swollen shut. She had, on entering the police station, recieved medical care, but over the next two days the bruising had bloomed into a riot of colours. She had stitches on her breastbone and wore plain hospital scrubs.

Aiden had been careful not to break any bones. She had not offered him the same courtesy.

This man was a dom. She could tell it in every part of her body, the way he stood, careful and confident, aware every eye was on him and enjoying the attention.

“Miss Martin," he said, addressing her as he pulled out the other chair to sit down. “I am Peter Hale, as of today I am your court appointed dominant, I believe we have a lot to talk about.”

Lydia snarled at him, but didn't move.

“I know what you think, you don't want a dominant, and considering what happened to your last one I can see why.” He opened the file and spread the photos of Aiden across the table. She had taken a baseball bat to him, and had not for a moment regretted it.

Not after what he had done to her.

“Aiden Carver has been transferred to a prison infirmary awaiting his court date. After reviewing your files, your DNS testing, and your school transcripts the judge gave you to me. Judge Yukimura believes you can be rehabilitated, that under the hand of a fair dom you can achieve your potential.”

“So you're just a state appointed rapist?” she asked.

He laughed. He genuinely laughed.

“Miss Martin," he said, “you have a very negative view of dynamics in the whole. I have your DNS tapes, and you tried to be rated as a dominant, can I ask why?”

“Can I ask why I failed?” She countered.

He smirked, “because you didn't understand the test. It's designed that way. You focussed on the questions, when they are the smallest part of it. Everything in that room is part of the test, even waiting outside it. The questions are just to stimulate emotional responses. It doesn't matter what you answer, because your body answers for you.

“Take the chair, a vile uncomfortable thing, set just outside the range of the microphone to hear comfortably. A dominant will try to move the chair closer to find it's bolted to the floor. A submissive asks if he can move the chair and the bolts are released, they are always granted permission. The dominant is forced to sit forward at the edge of the chair with the straight back required usually of a submissive, they find this uncomfortable, but the submissive who tries to game the system, the way you did, softens into the position.

“Judge Yukimura asked me to consult on the case and I agreed with her assessment, you, Miss Martin are not a failed submissive who reacted with violence to her violent dom, you are a sub who was failed by her doms.”

“And that's where you come in?” She asked, crossing her legs and leaning back, it was a dominant's posturing and she knew he knew it.

“Yes." He answered, “do you know who I am?” he asked her then.

“Peter Hale," she said, she had listened to him introducing himself after all.

“And who is Peter Hale?" he asked.

“You." She answered.

“And what is Peter Hale responsible for?”

At that she was at a blank.

“I am the head of Concordance Studies at Berkeley, I am the author of many books on dynamics and am currently teaching banned books on concordance at Berkeley for fun. I am the expert on Concordance in California, if not the west coast, and I am the designer of the DSM.” It wasn't bragging, but simple statement. “Which is why Judge Yukimura asked for me to consult on this case, and why I am your new court appointed dominant.”

“I know my rights," Lydia said tersely, “I can refuse.”

“You can, but you should know what the alternative is. You are a submissive who took a baseball bat to the dominant she was contracted with and placed him in intensive care. The alternative in this case is a life time being forced to chemically submit in Eichen House Mental Institution. That's the cards on the table. If you reject me Dr Morell will sedate you and take you there now.

“I fought that you could be rehabilitated, and that with proper guidance and education you could be free to choose your own dominant, knowing your own dynamic in a healthy way.” His tone was calm and even.

“Things are different for you, I will admit that, the grand daughter of Lorraine Martin will gain some leeway from the system. Your grandmother’s name still opens some doors. But the daughter of two dominants you were raised in the middle of their power struggle. You learned to mimic their behaviours in the hope that by passing the DSM as dominant you would gain access to the advanced engineering program at Yale, a program that only accepts dominants. They’re backwards assholes, by the way, and there are several lawsuits in process to force them to change that.” That surprised her but she kept it from her face. “As my submissive you have been subscribed to the pure mathematics department at Berkeley, judging by your transcripts, and publications, and yes, Miss Martin," he said to her surprised expression, “we do know about those, that you would be happier surrounded by pure numbers, but you can certainly change classes if you prefer.”

“Why?” she asked, "I doubt it's just because I’m the granddaughter of Lorraine Martin.”

“You're right,” he answered calmly, “I haven't taken a sub in nearly ten years, I get what domination I need from teaching, watching those little minds open to knowledge, but I volunteered for you, because the system has done you wrong, and I want to prove I can amend that. You, Miss Martin, are a challenge, and I want to teach you to submit.”

“Force me, you mean?” she had no intention of simply bowing to this man. The test was wrong she was a dominant, she had to be.

“That shows how little you know about dynamics, you must choose to submit or your submission is of no value to either you or me. It is the dominant's role to know how best to guide you to submission, and the submissive’s role to trust their dominant knows when to drop them, and what to do after, including aftercare, reassurance, and their safety. You have experienced none of those things.”

“And you can teach me?” It was a challenge.

He had a grin like a shark. “It will be my pleasure.”

—-

Lydia sat in the back of the car, she had refused to sit in the passenger seat and Peter, he insisted she call him that, not Master, or Sir, or Mr Hale, had simply opened the back door.

His car was a silver prius, a year or two past new, but kept immaculately, and drove perfectly.

They stopped at a strip outlet mall, and guided her into the Nike Outlet. She was collared only with a piece of ribbon, tied at the back of her neck, loose enough she could reach up and tug it free.

He asked for her measurements and on recieving them went around the store lifting things, sports bras, razor back running vests, jersey shorts, trainer socks and a several pairs of plain white nikes that didn’t lace up. He placed them on the counter and paid for them without a question.

“I have a taste," he said as he placed them in the trunk of the car, “I like to dress up pretty girls. It's not a sexual thing, but when you are at the house I expect you to dress a certain way. This is to aid in your submission. By dressing the way I want you can see what it is to please your dominant, when we attend functions, which I have to do as part of my publication schedule, chore that it is, you will be dressed appropriately for that.

“So we will go shopping tomorrow. I have booked a pair of hotel rooms in San Francisco so it can be done properly. Your tastes will be taken into consideration, but ultimately it is my decision. You will never be forced to wear something that you find distasteful, or uncomfortable. I have no care for that. You will come to trust I care for your comfort and appearance as much as my own.”

It sounded like he was pontificating and she said so.

He smiled at her. “Next, the beauty salon.” He said bluntly, “your nails are like something out of a horror movie.”

So far nothing he had said was abhorrent to her, even when the “beauty salon" he drove her to was a large Spanish style villa that looked more like a private residence, but was revealed to be a very exclusive day spa.

He gave careful instructions and even if she had wanted to complain she was whisked away by women in white scrubs who were quietly efficient.

When she was returned to him, he was having his own nails done in an open courtyard, sitting in the sun, drinking fresh orange juice. She felt more naked in the dress he had left out for her, a knee length designer thing, with a square bodice and box pleated skirt, with stockings, simple Laboutin pumps, and matching eggplant coloured designer underwear. They had treated her to a thorough waxing, leaving not a single hair upon her body, before exfoliating her, using a razor bladed contraption on her feet, and then giving her a turkish bath, before oiling her up and buffing her down with rough cloths and dressing her. Even her hair had been washed and set.

She felt reborn, and new and naked, as raw as if they had peeled her.

Even her nails had been oiled.

“You look lovely, Lydia,” Peter said, gesturing that she sat down. “This place is rather expensive, but one cannot argue with their results.” She had caught sight of herself in a mirror as she passed, and agreed that she had been as lovely as she had been before the DSM had ruined her life. “We shall certainly arrange that this be a monthly treat, you, sweetheart, are preening.”

"I do look fabulous," she agreed sitting down and helping herself to a glass of the orange juice.

“Would you care for some champagne with that, miss?” the butler, because the spa had one, asked.

“Yes,” she said, smirking at Peter, “I do think I will.” If she expected Peter to make comment she was disappointed, the man simply took a bottle of champagne from a cooler on the counter, uncorked it without ceremony, and half filled her glass, turning her orange juice, complete with floating fruit, into a mimosa. He then returned the champagne to the ice bucket and placed it on their table.

“This dress is Dior." Lydia said.

“It is." Peter said, "I picked it up off the rack on my way to the institute this morning. I had to hope that your measurements were the same. Does the bra fit? I am told a badly fitting bra is very uncomfortable. When we go to San Francisco shopping I’ll be certain to take you in for a proper fitting. I hope you don't mind wearing off the rack until then.”

“If I had said no?” she asked, “what would you have done then with your spa treatments and five thousand dollar dresses.”

“Taken them back." He answered, “but we both know you were never going to say no.”

“So it was just the illusion of choice?” she asked.

“No, it was just a situation where you were stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, and I was the best of two bad options. Eichen house’s ugly tee shirt night gowns and grey robes would be awful on your complexion.”

Despite herself she smiled. “You have rules, of course?”

“Of course." He answered, “you will keep a set schedule, which will be on a white board in the kitchen, you will shower twice daily using the toiletries provided, you will keep yourself as hairless as you are now, but appointments will be made to arrange for that. You will wear what is laid out for you, and you will run with me in the mornings. You will have your own room, and it is your responsibility to keep it clean, but I have a cleaning service that will come in on Wednesdays, when we both have class. You will ride with me to school," by that he meant Berkeley, “because it's easier, and outside of office hours my office will be open to you to use.”

“You don't mention sex.” She was challenging him and doing so deliberately and it seemed he was enjoying it.

“Your file suggested that Carver considered you a brat, he thought you pushed because you wanted punishment, I don't know if that's true yet, but I shall make you a deal, Lydia," he said her name like the drag of his fingers against the nubs of her spine. “I will do nothing without your explicit and clear consent. Everything we do will be consensual, I will do nothing until you ask for it. That includes sex. Unless," he leaned across the table and licked his lips, “you want me to put restrictions on that. What you need to understand, sweetheart," he used the affectionate nickname as a salve, something softer after the way he said her name, “is this is about you, pleasing you pleases me, I take my pleasure from you taking yours. If you want me to create rules for you about sex I will.”

Lydia swallowed, she could feel a flush on her cheeks she wanted to attribute to the champagne but she had only taken a few swallows.

“Is that what you want, pretty girl," his voice dropped low, “you want me to tell you not to touch yourself, not to run those hands over the skin they softened for me,” Lydia couldn't help it, she pressed her thighs together and he spotted the gesture as small as it was. “You want me to tell you not to run those fingers through the lips of your sex, not to gather up the wetness you find there, not to bring your fingers, glistening with your slick, up to those pretty pink lips of yours. Do you want me to tell you that your orgasms belong to me? that only I get to make you come.”

She took a deep breath and shook the arousal from herself replacing it with anger. “Fuck you, Peter.”

“Not until you ask.” He answered blithely.

—-

Peter's house was a single story thing of glass that was set in a few acres of land outside of San Francisco proper. The back wall was entirely made of sliding glass panels, that overlooked the trees that led down to a small pond, but the entire area had been left to go wild, and there were animals taking advantage of the small area of decking to help themselves to the feed that was thrown out there.

He carried in the shopping he had done for her and led her through to an impersonal bedroom, the bed was freshly made, a California queen, with a duck down quilt and thick pillows in a grey jersey cover, but the sheets were flannelette. Peter, it seemed, enjoyed comfort.

He placed the bags on the bed. “When in the house I want you to be comfortable," he said, from a drawer he pulled a sloggi bra, underwired but soft to the touch without the construction of most bras and a pair of black cotton bikini briefs, the sort of utilitarian panties that she had worn in middle school, then a pair of the grey marl jersey shorts, a tee shirt wife beater, and a zip up hoodie. “This is how you will dress in the house.”

“Do I keep the stockings?” she asked tartly.

“They wouldn't match at all," he answered without a blink. “I want you barefoot. We all have our little kinks, after all, I happen to like a beautiful woman's feet.”

“Do you want me to jerk you off with them, perhaps in these stockings, I could rub you to completion, my toes against your balls." He had aroused her earlier with his words, she wanted to show that she was as capable as he.

“Do you want to?” he asked with a leer. “What colour did they paint your toenails, aubergine to match your pretty panties?”

And damn him she wanted to answer him. She wanted to sit down on the bed he had reassured her was hers alone, in a room he had told her he would not enter without permission after this first time, and spread her legs, kick off the Laboutins he had bought her, and show him.

She didn't doubt that if she asked him to eat her out, he would, and he’d make it good for her.

“Help me with my zipper," she said instead, turning around to show it to him, lifting her hair.

"One last instruction for now," he added, “in the house wear your hair in a French braid, your hair is beautiful but if we play it will get in the way, I do not want it to get caught on any buckles, or straps, or for one of us to put our hand on it, or to lie on it. One of my previous submissives had beautiful long hair and it was not pretty the way it got in the way. So please, keep it tightly restrained, when we go out style it however you wish.”

“You don't have instructions for that?” She pressed.

“Do you want me to?” He grinned. “I’ll go make a start on dinner," and with the skim of his fingertips against the nape of her neck he undid the zipper of her dress.

When she pulled on the clothes he had laid out for her she was a little surprised because it was very comfortable. He had said he got aspects of his domination through taking care of her comfort, and the clothes were just too large, just enough to be comfortable without falling from her. There were a few tee shirts in the drawer that were a little too small, where he had guessed wrongly, but they were unworn, some still had their price tags.

When she dressed she wandered into the family room. There was a large brown leather couch pointed towards the windows, not the tv which was in the corner, and covered with a fake fur blanket that was lined in fleece, and the kitchen was open to the family room and he was chopping vegetables for a salad to accompany their meal.

He had made it clear that he had not expected her to take care of any of the household chores other than basic tidying up after herself, telling her that he enjoyed cooking and after days that they would be eating out but if they were expected to socialise she would be informed in advance.

Lydia was left with the terrible knowledge that she did not know what he wanted of her or how it was to proceed.

At least with Aiden she had understood what he wanted.

“Whilst I make dinner," he said, over the counter, “I want you to kneel, nothing more than that, there on the mat, facing the window. If you want you can put the television on, but if you want to get up for anything I want you to tell me.” From the fridge he pulled a bottle of water, Pellegrino, and a glass, placing them on the small table beside the kneeling mat. “Think of this as practise seiza. Sometimes it will be necessary for social things, some people are backwards but we still have to impress them. So just for a short while, if you could kneel.”

Lydia could think of no reason not to. She had never been one for kneeling and Peter wasn't making her kneel for him, he was asking her to kneel for the sake of kneeling. She sank to her knees on the mat.

Seiza was the traditional position for a sub, in Japan it had become an artform, the way a sub sat, there were books on how to do it properly, tools to support the back, which had been the original purpose of the obi. The sub would sit on their knees with their back held straight and their head bowed, they would place their hands on their knees. Some philosophers said that the true path to enlightenment could only be achieved through the perfection of seiza.

Lydia had never really given much thought about it, other than the mandatory courses, for both sub and dom as they were years before they took their DSM and became defined as either, so she knew the position, she was sure she could hold it for a short period of time, after it, dinner would not be more than an hour.

She sat for a while, trying not to fidget but she couldn’t quite get her mind to go still, she wasn't fretting or worrying her mind was just all over the place. She wondered if she would like the math department that Peter had signed her up for. She wondered if Peter wanted sex from her but wasn't sure she was ready for that yet. Peter was attractive, and he looked at her like she was a rich meal placed before a starving man but she barely knew him. The state had assigned him as her dominant and he had been clear he did not expect sex from her now, if ever.

Because she was sat doing left with nothing but her thoughts she became aware of the pressure of her bladder. It was not uncomfortable, but she wanted to pee.

Peter had told her to ask if she wanted anything, anything at all, and she assumed that including being allowed to pee. But she was a fierce independant woman, she had put her dominant in the hospital for taking advantage of her, she was not going to put her hand up and ask for permission to urinate like she was in kindergarten again.

She went to stand up, but sitting in seiza for as long as she had, which was not long at all, no more than ten or fifteen minutes at most, had caused her legs to go numb underneath her. She tried to stand but pitched forward, throwing her arms to catch herself on the couch but Peter was there and she fell against his chest. He had moved so swiftly it was almost as if he had been waiting for her to do it, so instead of ending up face first on the couch it was against his cashmere sweater.

For some reason that made her strangely mad, she could not have said why just that it did, “you bastard," she hissed, “you knew that was going to happen.”

To her surprise Peter just laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I primarily work with long (novelette and up sized) fics I am useless at the shorter narratives, really, so I'm opening this up, prompt me - I can't guarantee I'll write your prompt but I will read it, and the vaguer the better because if you tell my muse to come up with something specific she'll ignore you.
> 
> If any of the plots here inspire you YOU HAVE BLANKET PERMISSION TO WORK ON THEM, seriously, take them and go, this is for drabbles and ideas and scenes that I'll probably never develop so if you want to - do it, just link me so I can read it when you're done.


End file.
